


Because of Pancakes

by einsKai



Series: Pancakes Universe [1]
Category: IDOLiSH7 (Video Game)
Genre: (s), Alternate Universe - College/University, Anthropology Student!Riku, Architect!Iori, Bad Matchmaking, Botanist!Yuki, Breaking the Fourth Wall, Cafe Owner!Mitsuki, Danganronpa References, Established Relationship, Food Designer!Tamaki, Friendship, Gaku and Tenn attempt matchmaking for Ryuu so he can get Yamato to be his boyfriend, Gaku has lots of bad ideas, GakuTenn Jesus Kai breaking the bread once again, History Student!Tenn, Humor, I don't think I mention all of the jobs/subjects but have them anyway, I should probably add some tags explaining what the characters do in this au, It doesn't work that well, Jealousy, M/M, Matchmaking, Musician!Sougo, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pancakes AU, Pedagogy Student!Ryuu, Pedagogy Student!Yamato, Protective Siblings, RIP Iori, References to Shakespeare, Roombas, Sibling Love, Soba Shop Worker!Gaku, Star Wars References, Waiter!Nagi, Zoology Student!Momo, an apartment burns down, probably out of character, references to many other things, rest in piece wall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-09-13
Packaged: 2019-05-25 12:49:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14977508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/einsKai/pseuds/einsKai
Summary: “Please explain why you two turned up at my door at 3AM, both of you in your pyjamas and with a bag as if you want to crash at my place?”“Gaku destroyed the kitchen while trying to make pancakes."





	1. Crashing at a Friend's Place Because of Pancakes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PeachiChan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeachiChan/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to my College AU! This is a four chapter long story, the first three chapters are already written and the fourth is in the works.
> 
> Please don't expect regular updates, because I will probably forget about this fic if nobody reminds me.
> 
> Also I'd like to thank my wonderful best friend for giving me this idea, her idea was almost completely different from this story, but she was the TRIGGER (hah, get it) for me getting this idea. So this fic is for my best bro in the world (I love you)
> 
> Have fun reading!
> 
> \- Kai

“Okay, please explain why you two turned up at my door at 3AM, both of you in your pyjamas and with a bag as if you want to crash at my place?”, Ryuu asked and rubbed his temple. He felt a headache coming, not only because he had been woken up at this time of the night, but also because he was not sure if he was ready to hear about whatever happened to make his high-school friends come to his apartment.

“We were planning to stay here”, Gaku answered and took a step forward, “can we come in?”

“No!”, Ryuu said immediately, “you have a very nice apartment yourselves. I’d get it if you fought again and one of you had to crash here, but why are the both of you here?!”

“Gaku destroyed the kitchen while trying to make pancakes”, Tenn said, “We can’t go into the apartment until everything has been cleaned up and secured by the fire department.”

“You made the pancakes though”, Gaku mumbled.

”I wasn’t the one who wanted to eat pancakes in the middle of the night. And  _I_  surely didn’t try to extinguish the pan with water.”

“ _I_ didn’t set the pan on fire trying to make pancakes!”

Ryuu sighed. He had a feeling that that headache wouldn’t go away for a while now.

 

 

 

Living with Gaku and Tenn wasn’t as bad as Ryuu had imagined it to be. The two of them had taken Ryuu’s ex-flatmate’s bedroom, because when Tamaki and Sougo had moved out to live in their own apartment they hadn’t taken their king sized bed with them. He did have to deal with Tenn and Gaku’s fighting in the evenings sometimes, but they mostly got along – they were dating for a reason. They left Ryuu alone unless they needed something, or they wanted to watch a movie together (“Just like when we were in high-school”, Gaku had said and Tenn had slapped his head, “don’t talk like we’re old men, we graduated about three years ago”) and they debated about which movie to watch.

Tenn was occupied with his studies and Gaku was busy working at his shop, so they weren’t really home during the days.

 

Ryuu’s great secret went undetected for the first few days, but then the first weekend came.

“Don’t you have an exam to study for or something?”, Ryuu asked. Tenn was sitting on the sofa in the living room, reading a book.

“No”, he simply answered and flipped a page, unbothered.

“Then can’t you go read in a different room? Please?”

“But I’m comfortable.”

 

Ryuu gave up. When Tenn got like this there was no way he could be moved. At least Gaku wasn’t here-

“I’m home~”, said Gaku from the entryway, “There were no costumers coming so I decided to close up early today.”

-damn. Ryuu was fucked.

 

“Can’t you two like… go on a date spontaneously?”, Ryuu asked. He really was grasping the last straws.

 

“Why do you want us gone from here so much? Is your secret girlfriend coming to visit or something?”, Tenn asked.

He had even put his book away.

“No!”, Ryuu denied quickly, “It’s just another student from my pedagogics class. We study together on Saturdays.”

“A study date?”, Gaku asked, while he was putting his outside clothes away.

”It’s not a date!”

“Then why are you making such a fuss?”, Tenn sat up.

“Yeah, what is so important about that mysterious classmate of yours?”

“Why is the only time when you two aren’t arguing when you are teaming up against me?”

“We don’t argue that often”, Tenn said quickly.

Gaku rolled his eyes: ”Oh yes, we do. It’s getting a little tiring actually.”

 

The two fell into their usual banter. Ryuu hoped they’d take the matter to the bedroom while he went to take a quick shower, but when he came back to the living room a disaster was waiting for him.

 

“So you’re Ryuu’s secret boyfriend?”, Gaku asked the bespectacled man who was clearly confused.

“How old are you? Do you have a stable income? Do you intend to marry Ryuu?”, Tenn asked and handed the newcomer a mug of tea… which was the same one Ryuu had drunken from about twenty minutes ago.

 

”Tenn, that’s my mug! Don’t give a used mug to a guest. And why are you two acting like you’re my parents meeting my significant other!? I already told you that he’s a classmate.”

 

Ryuu sighed deeply, rubbing his temples. “Yamato-kun, these two are my high-school friends. Tenn, Gaku, this is Nikaido Yamato.”

Tenn’s eyes widened. ”Nikaido Yamato?! Ryuu’s secret boyfriend is Riku’s roommate?!”

“I am Riku’s roommate, what about it?”, Yamato asked. He was looking even more confused by the minute.

”Oh no, his brother got involved”, mumbled Gaku, “now he’s really going to be the concerned parent.”

 

While Tenn began to ask about his younger twin brother’s eating habits, Gaku pulled Ryuu into the kitchen.

 

”Listen, if he’s really your study buddy go outside and study in a café or something. In here you won’t get anything done.”

“He really is my “study buddy”, as you put it. And yes, I am going to do exactly that. I’m looking forward to when you two can finally return to your own apartment. I used to be able to study in peace in my own home.”

 

Ryuu turned around and went back to the living room, where Tenn was still burying Yamato under an abysmal amount of questions about his younger twin brother, who apparently happened to live with Yamato.

“Yamato-kun? We won’t be able to study here. Let’s find somewhere else to do it”, Ryuu said.

”Alright”, Yamato was quick to agree, “I know a nice café. Some students from our college who are my friends are working there too. Let’s go there.”

 

After the door of the apartment had closed behind the two men, Gaku stepped next to Tenn. Their eyes locked.

”You know what I’m thinking, right?”, Tenn asked.

”Of course”, Gaku answered, a grin forming on his face, “We’re definitely following them.”

“I know why I’m dating you”, Tenn said and smiled, “We should wait for a minute, but we can already put on our shoes. I know the café Riku’s roommate was talking about.”

”As expected of you.”

”It’s near campus, that’s why I know. They sell decent donuts.”

“They must be really good, for you to praise them.”

“There’s room for improvement”, Tenn said and shrugged, “alright, that was enough time. They won’t notice when we follow them now.”

 

 

 

“Are you seeing what I am seeing?”

“Ryuu is  _blushing_ , isn’t he? Pinch me, so I know that this is not a dream.”

Tenn reached out to pinch Gaku’s cheek.

”Ouch! I didn’t mean that literally you idiot! With that bruise my co-workers will think I’m in an abusive relationship.”

“No, they’ll just think your usual flirting got rejected in a harsh way, now continue to watch Ryuu.”

 

“Tenn-nii?”, a sudden voice interrupted the two of them.

Gaku and Tenn both turned around and stared at the newcomer.

”’Tenn-nii’? Is this your brother, Nanase-san?”, the blue haired person next to the red haired one asked, “why is your brother hiding behind the plants in front of Nii-san’s café?”

“None of your business”, Tenn said, “If Izumi Mitsuki is your brother you are Izumi Iori? I’ve heard a lot about you. Are you two on a date?”

“Your face is scary, Tenn. Let’s go before Ryuu spots us, we’ve seen enough anyway.”

“You’re going already, Tenn-nii?”, Nanase Riku sounded sad, “I was hoping we could talk a little! You never respond to my texts properly.”

“Wouldn’t want to interrupt your date with Izumi Iori”, Tenn spat and grabbed Gaku’s wrist, “We’re leaving. Gaku and I wanted to have a date night too.”

Riku’s face was as confused as Izumi Iori’s, but he waved after them and told them to have fun on their date.

 

“He’s your brother, you know. You could be nicer.”, Gaku said on their way home.

”Shut up”, was Tenn’s only answer. His hand let go of Gaku’s wrist, only to tangle their fingers together.

”So about that date…”

”You know that that was a lie. We’re not having a date; we’re having a strategy meeting.”

”I’m fine with that too.”

 

When Ryuu came home the apartment was silent. There was no light in any room and at first he thought that Gaku and Tenn had both gone somewhere, maybe to their own apartment again...  
But then someone cleared their throat behind him and all of his hopes for a peaceful evening disappeared.

"Ryuu, we need to talk", Gaku said and flipped a light switch. The lamp on the table blinded Ryuu and he tried to cover his eyes with his fingers, but even that was not enough. Where did they get such a bright lamp all of a sudden? Ryuu didn't own something like this and he had never seen it in Sougo and Tamaki's leftover belongings either.

"Is this an interrogation from one of those detective shows?", he mumbled, "anyway, what do you want to talk about?"

He just wanted this to be over already.

"Tsunashi Ryuunosuke", Tenn began, his voice deep and serious, "do you have romantic feelings for Nikaido Yamato?"

Ryuu felt his face heat up. From the heat of the lamp of course, not because he was blushing.

"No", he answered.

"So you have a crush on him", Gaku said.

"Did you even listen to what I said? I said I didn't like him."

"We heard you and based on evidence we gathered when we watched you in the café we decided that you’re lying."

"That's right", Tenn said, "and we also decided that we'd help you."

Ryuu rubbed his temples again. He felt like he'd be doing that a lot in the next couple of days. "I don't need your help for anything."

“You don’t know it yet, but you’ll thank us.”

 

“How do we approach this matter best?”, Gaku asked, “We want it to seem natural, right?”

Tenn nodded: “The best way would be to push them together so they kiss. Then Nikaido Yamato would realize that he likes Ryuu too and they’d start going out.”

“You can’t know if he likes me!”, Ryuu protested, but his friends (?) ignored him.

“That’s not romantic at all, Tenn!”, Gaku said, “We have to do something more dramatic.”

“I thought you wanted a natural way?”, Tenn mumbled.

“Listen to this:”, Gaku pulled out a sheet of paper and began scribbling on it. Ryuu was glad that Gaku hadn’t pursued a career as an artist, because if the two stick figures were supposed to look like Yamato and him…

“Okay, so you two walk around campus from time to time, right? You have classes together. So after that evening class on Thursday Ryuu will ask Nikaido to go on a walk after that class.”

Gaku added another stick figure.

“Then Tenn will approach them, he has to dress up as someone scary looking. And you’ll threaten them. Ryuu will then save Nikaido from the threat, like a knight in shining armor. After this you can safely ask him out. Nobody can resist a noble person like that.”

Ryuu didn’t have to say anything, because Tenn already stood up and walked out of the room.

”Your ideas are stupid”, he called over his shoulder, “there’s no way that would work. And I’m not dressing up as some kind of thug.”

“Your idea is to push them together, that violence already makes you a thug!”

“Hey, stop arguing already”, Ryuu said, “I don’t want this kind of hostile atmosphere at my apartment.”

“If you want us to stop arguing then decide which plan is the better one”, his friends responded in synch. It was as if they had practiced this line. They probably had.

 

 

 

“I’m only doing this because Ryuu is an idiot and bad at decisions”, Tenn said a few days later, “The pushing idea was way better.”

“Yeah, yeah”, Gaku said and gave his boyfriend some clothes, “put these on.”

“Why am I the one dressing up? You’re the tall and scary one out of the two of us.”

“Have you ever looked into a mirror? The scary one is you”, Gaku replied, “And now shut up and put on the costume.”

Tenn sighed deeply. “Where did you even get these?”

“My dad had it in his basement.”

“Why does your father own these things?”

“Just put it on, they’re coming!”

Tenn pulled the hood over his head and grabbed the baseball bat. He turned around and scowled at Gaku a last time.

”You’re going to pay for this.”

“I love you too”, Gaku winked, “that expression is perfect by the way.”

Tenn didn’t pay him any attention anymore but instead stepped out of the shadow of the building they were hiding behind. Gaku stared at his boyfriend’s back. Tenn looked good in whatever he wore, Gaku had known that, but that he’d also manage to make baggy pants and a grey hoodie that was a size too big for him surprised him. The baseball bat completed the look.

Gaku watched as Tenn approached the two men walking along campus.

“This is my territory, assholes!”, Tenn started in his best impression of a stereotypical punk, like they were portrayed in media. With that bat on his shoulders he really looked frightening.

When neither Yamato nor Ryuu reacted, Tenn took another step forward: “I’m going to kill you!”

When he threatened to kill them it finally got through to Ryuu, even though he had been involved in the plan, hell, he had decided that they’d try this approach.

“Come on”, Gaku whispered, “protect him from the big bad Tenn.”

But instead of fighting back or just saying something, anything, Ryuu just stared at Tenn, completely startled and scared. Yamato took a step forward.

“Are you rehearsing?”, the green haired man asked.

Oh, Gaku realized, there was a theatre group at this college. Yamato must be thinking that Tenn was practicing for a role. Maybe the costume had been too much.

Tenn sighed in defeat. His whole stature deflated and he didn’t try to look threatening anymore. “Yeah”, he said, “what do you think?”

“Very realistic. You really scared poor Ryuu here”, Yamato patted Ryuu’s shoulder, “come on, big guy, the theatre kid can’t hurt you.” The fond look Yamato threw the ‘big guy’ didn’t go unnoticed by the two matchmakers.

Ryuu sighed too. Then he nodded and started walking towards their destination again, whatever that destination had been in the first place.  
Soon Yamato and Ryuu were out of sight and Tenn returned to the building Gaku was still hiding behind.

“I could hurt him”, Tenn said and threw the baseball bat to the ground, “And I will definitely hurt  _you_ ; this plan was a bust.”

“I admit that I didn’t take Ryuu’s personality into consideration”, Gaku said and grabbed the baseball bat and took the bag with Tenn’s normal clothing, ”Let’s go back to Ryuu’s apartment.”

Tenn was still wearing his costume that had at least served the purpose of keeping him anonymous. The hood had concealed his face perfectly.

After a few minutes of silent walking, Tenn looked up as if he had just had an idea. ”Are we pushing them together now?”

“No, that’s still not romantic enough!”, Gaku protested, “I think the best approach would be to use real life romance as reference to base our approaches off.”

“So you want to go around and ask for people’s romantic experiences, so you can recreate those romantic situations for Ryuu and Nikaido Yamato?”, Tenn didn’t look like he liked the idea.

“Yes. We’ll start with our own situation. Hold that for a minute”, Gaku said and gave Tenn the bags he was holding. Then he pulled a notebook and a pen out of his pocket, “How did you confess to me?”

“Why are you asking me? You were there.”

“I’m the one taking notes.”

Tenn sighed with irritation.

“It was our second year in high school. You were being an oblivious idiot and while you were obviously crushing on me you didn’t realize a single of the signals I was sending. Ryuu said that I should just tell you, so I wrote you a love letter. I wanted to meet you on the school’s roof to confess.”

“I still have that letter. Your ‘Meet me on the roof after classes end. Don’t bring anyone else’ sounded like a letter of challenge”, Gaku laughed fondly, “It was cute.”

“Shut up”, even though Gaku wasn’t looking at Tenn he knew that his cheeks were dusted by a blush, “You came to the roof after classes ended, like I asked you to, and you looked terrified until you saw me. Then I confessed and now I’m here, wearing a stupid costume to go along with your dumb idea to play matchmaker for our friend. And I have to do all of that only because we had to move in with Ryuu. Because of pancakes.”

“Great, that was perfect. I have good notes now.”

“So we’re writing a love letter next?”, Tenn asked.

“Oh no, we need more references than ourselves. Let’s ask some other couples we know. Like Ryuu’s old roommates. Let’s visit them tomorrow. It’s your day off, right?

Tenn nodded.

“Good, ask Ryuu for their address and text me. I’ll meet you there after work.”

Tenn sighed: “Of course. We’ll just go and ask strangers about their love life.”

“If it’s for Ryuu they’ll let us in and talk to us.”

“I hope so. I’m not dragging your dejected self back to Ryuu’s apartment if they don’t let us in.”

“Believe me, they will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it :D
> 
> Seeing as today is Nagi's birthday and he didn't appear in this fic at all (he will later though, psssht) I recommend you go and read [Shion's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShionsTear/pseuds/ShionsTear) birthday fic [Smile](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14724251) from his amazing [i7 Family AU](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1028642), it is very great and I love it a lot, so go read it!
> 
> Have a nice day!


	2. Meeting Up With Couples Because of Pancakes (Part 1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again!
> 
> I'm going to be away on a school trip the next few days and since I don't really know how my access to the Internet will be I decided to upload the second chapter today.
> 
> The fourth and last is in the works already and the third is finished but in need of editing.
> 
> I hope you can have fun with this chapter for the time I need to finish up the last two chapters!
> 
> \- Kai

The next day the two of them met at the address Tenn had managed to find out.

It was an apartment building in a nice area, pretty modern but not sterile. It seemed like a good place for families with commuting members to live, since there was a park and a playing ground as well as bus stations and a train station near the building.

“How much money do they make?! Aren’t they both younger than us?”, Gaku asked, “Are they drug dealers? Did we let Ryuu live with criminals for more than a year?”

“They’re not. Yotsuba Tamaki became a food designer at a very young age because he’s talented and is currently employed by a major instant food company. He also has arranged food for various other companies’ commercials and his arrangements starred in Chiba Shizuo’s latest drama. Apparently his fiancé is managing his contracts and their finances. Ousaka Sougo, said fiancé, himself is a self-producing independent musician. He seems to sell quite well.”

“You really did a background check on them?”

“I have to know what kind of people we’ll encounter.”

“Ever the serious one, aren’t you?”, Gaku grinned, “Okay Mr. Prepared, which floor do they live on?”

Tenn stared past Gaku for a second and then announced: “Fourth floor, apartment five.”

“Did you really know that too?”

“No, but the nameplates behind you suggest that. Are you going to ring the bell now? It’s the one that says “Yotsuba/Ousaka”, in case you didn’t catch that.”

Gaku chose to stop answering at this point and just rang the bell. There was a clicking noise and then a soft voice answered.

“Good evening”, the person on the other end said, “who is this?”

“We’re friends of Tsunashi Ryuunosuke”, Gaku said, “There’s something we have to talk to you about.”

They could hear shuffling and then the same quiet voice as before hurriedly whispered “Tamaki-kun, no”.

“Alright, I’ll let you in”, the person on the other end said. Please take the elevator to the fourth floor.”

 _Click_ and the speaker went silent. Then the door buzzed and Gaku and Tenn were let into the building.

“’There’s something we have to talk to you about’”, Tenn imitated Gaku, “Don’t kill Ryuu off.”

“Oh shut up, he let us in, didn’t he?”

They took the elevator as instructed and got off on the fourth floor.

A lanky young man running towards them with a “Is Ryuu-aniki okay?!” greeted them.

He looked like a teenager who hadn’t quite filled out after his last growth spurt. His light blue hair was tied up into a ponytail and some hairclips with some kind of mascot were holding leftover loose strands of it back. He was wearing a sweater and sweatpants.

“Are you Yotsuba?”, Gaku asked the man.

The blue haired one, apparently Yotsuba Tamaki, nodded: “So tell me already, what’s wrong with Ryuu-aniki?!”

“Nothing is wrong with him, Tamaki-kun”, the voice they knew from the intercom called, “He texted me a few hours ago to warn us of the visit of high-school friends of his. Apparently one of them had pressured him into giving them our address.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”, Tamaki said and pouted, “I thought we said that you always have to tell me everything.”

“I’m sorry, but I wasn’t sure if they’d really turn up. And now let our guests in.”

“Sorry for the intrusion”, Gaku said when he entered the apartment.

Sougo led them to a spacious living room, furnished with comfy cream-colored armchairs and a couch as well as a glass table. The huge windows provided the room with a lot of natural light and the atmosphere was friendly. There was a cupboard with a glass door which held a collection of various CD’s and records as well as some photos of the two of them. There was one where Tamaki was at some kind of award ceremony, Sougo standing next to him, smiling proudly. Another one showed them in front of a sunset, or sunrise. Their hands were clasped together and both their frames looked relaxed. The photos showed their happiness.

“Did Ryuu take these photos?”, Gaku asked after looking at them.

Sougo nodded: “Back when we were roommates Tsunashi-san used to take a lot of photos of us.”

“He never takes photos of us”, Tenn said, “I’m feeling a little jealous.”

“He does take pictures of us, but he only takes them when you’re asleep”, Gaku teased, “You’re too scary when you’re awake.”

“What do you want to drink?”, Tamaki called from another room, presumably the kitchen, “We have tea, coffee, juice and water,”

“Tea is good, thanks”, Gaku and Tenn replied at the same time. They looked at each other and sighed.

Gaku and Tenn took a seat on the couch and Sougo sat down in one of the armchairs.

“So, mind telling us why you’re here?”

“We want to help Ryuu get a boyfriend.”

A small smile crept onto Sougo’s face: “I see. Did he finally admit that he liked Yamato-san?”

“He didn’t”, Tenn said, “But we’re playing matchmaker nonetheless. And everything because of pancakes.”

“Pancakes?”, Tamaki, who had just come inside the living room carrying multiple cups and a can of tea, asked.

“It’s a long story, but what matters is that we want to collect as many various confession stories. We need inspiration and references.”

“You want to know how Sou-chan and I got together?”, Tamaki asked and sat down. But instead of taking a seat in the other free armchair he climbed behind Sougo and sat down there. He wrapped his legs around the white haired man’s waist and hugged Sougo’s torso from behind. Then he rested his head on top of his fiancé’s head. Sougo didn’t seem to notice that, he seemed used to this position.

“Exactly”, Gaku pulled out his notebook, “help us out.”

Sougo took a sip from his cup.

“Well, it started a while after Tamaki-kun got his first job as a food designer. I was very proud of him and I praised him more than usual. He noticed that.”

“I was worried about Sou-chan, because he never praised me that much before. I mean, I did get my first job, but he just didn’t stop praising me.”

“That was because I had realized that I liked him.”

“I talked to Ryuu-aniki about it.”

“Apparently they came to the conclusion that Tamaki-kun should talk to me about it too and ask me directly, because he came to my room in the evening and told me”, Sougo’s cheeks were slowly turning red as he remembered, “he told me ‘Sou-chan, I don’t know why you’re praising me so much and I won’t get it if you don’t tell me. But if you’re hurting then I want to help you. You just have to tell me. I’ll listen and try to understand.’ I was shocked of course. I didn’t think he’d pick it up if I behaved differently.”

“Then Sou-chan said that he’d think about it and didn’t talk to me for three days. That was horrible.”

“I went to confess after those three days”, Sougo said. He took a sip from his tea cup, “I was sure I’d get rejected and would have to move out after that. I had prepared to crash at a friend’s place in that case.”

“But I asked him out instead”, Tamaki said and smirked. He looked very complacent, “and now we’re engaged.”

“Congratulations”, Gaku said and smiled. Those two were a very cute couple, “How did that happen?”

Sougo frowned, but before he could speak Tamaki started: “Sou-chan’s dad was pissing me off the first time we met and said that he wouldn’t accept me dating Sou-chan if I didn’t marry him, so I asked if he’d marry me. He said yes.”

”What my father meant”, Sougo said, “Was that I should marry a girl that could give birth to heirs for his company. But that conversation was quite a show. Tamaki-kun stood up in the middle of the expensive restaurant we were dining in and declared ‘Well, then I’ll just have to marry Sou-chan’. I was surprised but happy too.”

Tamaki squeezed Sougo as he hugged him harder.

“Make Ryuu your flower girl”, Tenn said, breaking the silence after that story.

“Nice idea”, Tamaki mumbled, “When will we marry, Sou-chan?”

“I told you that we both have our careers to focus on. A wedding is a lot of work and neither of us have time for it at the moment. But don’t worry; we’ll definitely get married one day.”

“’kay”, the blue haired boy slurred and closed his eyes. He nuzzled Sougo’s neck.

Only now Sougo seemed to notice the position they were in. “T-Tamaki-kun, we have guests”, he protested.

“Ah, don’t worry about us. We got enough information. Thank you for the tea”, Gaku said, “Feel free to continue whatever you were doing.”

Gaku and Tenn got up and headed for the door.

“One last thing”, Sougo called after them, “Tsunashi-san thinks that Yamato-san has a crush on Mitsuki-san, the café owner. The café near his campus I mean.”

“Okay”, Tenn said, “That’s valuable information, thanks Ousaka Sougo.”

“It’s no problem. I hope you succeed.”

“Good luck, Gakkun, Tenten. Make Ryuu-aniki’s annoying pining go away.”

“We will. Goodbye!”

The door to the apartment closed behind them and they made their way to the elevator.

“We have to find out more about that café owner then”, Tenn said.

Gaku nodded: “Let’s observe Nikaido and Ryuu next time they go then.”

“Does this involve costumes again?”, Tenn sighed, clearly not fond of the idea of dressing up again.

“Of course.”

“I hate you.”

“Thanks.”

 

 

“Why am I doing this again?”, Tenn asked.

“Come on, you haven’t even put any of the props on”, Gaku answered. He was holding a grey hat and a fake beard of the same color.

“I’m not wearing a fake beard!”

“But the beards will conceal our faces.”

“Gaku. Listen”, Tenn said, “I will never, not now, not ever in the future, decide to grow a beard or wear a fake one.”

“What? I thought that we’d be those married old men with beards who sit in their armchairs, smoke pipes and tell their grandchildren stories.”

“If you ever do that I’m divorcing you.”

“Harsh, a divorce before we even got married.”

“Okay, let’s go now, without the beards. Hats and sunglasses are suspicious enough already, who do you think we are, some kind of idol? I’m a history student and you work in a soba store.”

“We could be idols. Maybe we should go to an audition sometime.”

“Never in a million years.”

Continuing their bickering the two of them left the apartment and headed for the Café de la Lune.

 

Gaku had never seen the café from the inside, but it was pretty much like he’d expected it to be. A bunch of tables stood scattered around the spacious room. Oranges seemed to be dominant in the café, but the honey colored wooden floor and counter and that the walls were occasionally painted white along with all that orange made the atmosphere of the café a warm one. The walls were decorated with framed pictures of different warm beverages and mouthwatering pastries.

One of the pictures stood out, since it was a children’s crayon drawing. Placed in front of the entrance it had been made sure that everyone entering saw it. The picture showed two stick people, both of them smiling, one with blue and one with orange hair. They were holding hands and standing in front of a tree and a house. The sky was a blue line at the top of the picture and the sun had a face too, just like the two people it was smiling.

There was a note next to the picture. ”Izumi Iori, age 4”, it said.

Izumi was the café owner’s name, so maybe that Iori was his son, Gaku thought. Something was off about the note though, he felt like he should be remembering something, but couldn’t pinpoint what it was.

Tenn didn’t pay the picture much attention and instead pulled Gaku towards a table. Apparently Tenn had put a lot of thought into where they could sit, because from this specific table they could overlook the whole place.

Gaku spotted Yamato and Ryuu at a table in the back, study materials in front of them. They both had a cup in front of them.

“ _Oh_! _Bienvenue_ to _Café de la Lune_! What would you like to order?”, a blond waiter asked and woke Gaku up from his thoughts.

Gaku was about to say that they hadn’t decided yet, when the blue eyes of that waiter widened and he stared at Tenn intensively.

” _Oh_ , Kujou-shi, it’s you! I almost didn’t notice that it was you. _Lovely_ , it’s the usual for you then?”, he leaned down and stage-whispered, “Is that _handsome_ one your _boyfriend_ you told me so much about~?”

Tenn shrank in his seat. He seemed embarrassed. Then he nodded. “I’d like the usual please. My companion would like number nine from the beverages menu and pastry number eight.”

“ _Amazing_!”, the waiter said and scribbled something onto his notepad, “I’ll be right back with the creations of our _wonderful chef_!”

 

As soon as the waiter was gone Gaku turned to Tenn and grinned: “So… the usual, huh?”

“Shut up. Maybe I’ve been here more often than I told you.”

”The staff calls you ‘Kujou-shi’, don’t you think that’s a little unusual?”

”That’s just how Rokuya Nagi is. Takanashi Tsumugi doesn’t do that and Izumi Mitsuki doesn’t either.”

“You also call the staff by their names, I can’t believe this. My Kujou ‘I’m my own best friend’ Tenn made friends.”

“Gaku, I’m going to dump my coffee on you if you don’t shut up right now. Ryuu will see us and then we can’t proof that Nikaido Yamato is not in love with Izumi Mitsuki.”

Gaku actually complied and looked around a little more. The pictures on the wall made him curios again. None of them were photos, even though some looked like they could be on first glance. Each of them had a note next to them, just like the children’s drawing at the entrance.

”Izumi Iori, age 13”; ”Izumi Iori, age 15”; ”Izumi Iori, age 16”; ”Izumi Iori, age 19”…

“Do you know who that Izumi Iori guy is? Is he the owner’s son?”, Gaku asked Tenn. At the mention of the name Tenn’s brows furrowed and he clenched his fist on the table.

“You met Izumi Iori a few days ago. When we were first here, remember?”

”Your brother’s boyfriend? I see. So he is the owner’s little brother.”

Tenn nodded.

”Come on, stop frowning Tenn. The dark aura around you could scare people. We’re on a date, remember?”

“What kind of date requires me to wear a stupid hat and sunglasses?”

“A ‘we’re spying on our best friend and are trying to find out if his crush likes someone else’-date.”

“Right…”

 

“ _Oh_! Your order is here!”, the waiter was there again.

“That was quick”, Gaku commented.

” _Of course_ ”, the blond said, “ _Mitsuki_ is the best and fastest _chef_ in the world! He’s _amazing_.”

“Rokuya Nagi, stop advertising your boyfriend or we’ll start wanting to take him away from you”, Tenn mumbled. He took a sip from his order.

“ _No_ , that’s _unfair_ , Kujou-shi! You already have your own _marvelous_ _boyfriend_ , you can’t steal mine away.”

“NAGI!”, a loud voice suddenly called, “Get back to work!”

“ _Yes_ ”, Nagi said and turned around, “We should hang out again, Kujou-shi. Iori came here and told me about Riku again~”

“You have my LINE”, Tenn said, suddenly interested.

“NAGI!”, the same voice as before called.

“I have to go”, Nagi said, “ _My beloved Mitsuki_ is calling for me.”

 

Just then Gaku realized that Tenn had ordered for him and he had no idea what Nagi had given him. He looked down and saw...

“Are you serious, Tenn?”

“What. It’s these things fault that we’re here right now.”

“Still, pancakes?”

“Leave me alone.”

“And LINE?! I didn’t even know you had a LINE.”

“I only made it so Rokuya Nagi can tell me everything that pest tells him about Riku.”

“Brother-Mode Tenn is scary”, Gaku sighed, “Want a bite of my pancakes?”

“Sure”, Tenn opened his mouth and Gaku fed him a piece of the pancakes. After chewing for a moment Tenn nodded contently, “Izumi Mitsuki really chose work in the right field.”

“Good, now that that has been established, let’s try and find out why Ryuu thinks that Nikaido likes the Izumi-ani.”

“Well, as if the Gods are on our side the perfect opportunity has just presented itself. Look”, Tenn said and pointed towards a very short orange haired staff member coming from the kitchen to bring both the studying men a refill, “That’s Izumi Mitsuki, café owner and Rokuya Nagi’s boyfriend.”

“We have to ask those two for their story later too”, Gaku said but then shut up to observe the scene in front of him.

 

“Yamato-san, a refill for you”, Mitsuki said and poured some tea for him, then he did the same for Ryuu, “You too, Tsunashi-san.”

“Thanks Mitsu”, Yamato said, “Sensei was getting thirsty.”

 

Gaku and Tenn needed a moment until they understood that ‘sensei’ referred to Yamato himself.

 

“You’re working hard I see. Pedagogics again?”

“As always. Ryuu here isn’t that good with studying and remembering so sensei is helping him organize his notes and come up with easy ways to remember things.”

Ryuu blushed and squirmed in his chair, trying not to look at the two of them interacting.

 

“He isn’t catching those looks Nikaido is giving him, is he?”

“Not at all. And he also doesn’t see Izumi Mitsuki squeezing Nikaido Yamato’s shoulder in that encouraging way. As if he’s saying ‘don’t worry, you’ll get laid soon’.”

“He only sees what he wants to see and then he’s interpreting romance into a friendship.”

“I feel a little sorry for him.”

“Me too.”

 

“Well, have fun studying then!”, Mitsuki said, “Tell me if you need anything.”

“Sure. Talk to you later, Mitsu.”

“Goodbye”, Ryuu said and dared to look up again.

 

“Good, now we know what their problem is. We can try to start there. Ryuu needs to realize that Nikaido likes him too and Nikaido needs to know that Ryuu likes him. We don’t need to make Nikaido fall for him.”

“That’s very reassuring”, Tenn said.

“Next we’ll talk to that Rokuya and the Izumi-ani. Ask him to let us stay after they close up.”

Tenn pulled out his phone and typed something.

“He says that it’s okay. We should just stay here, closing up time is in an hour.”

“Let’s have some fun until they close up then”, Gaku said, “I mean, we’re on a date, right?”

He leaned across the table and cupped Tenn’s chin. Then he wiped his thumb across the others cheek. ”You had some cream there~”

Furiously blushing Tenn sank back into his seat.

”I hate you and your dumb flirting. How many Shoujo manga did you read for this?!”

“It’s working, isn’t it?”

Tenn didn’t answer anymore and continued to eat his donuts quietly. Gaku leaned back and continued eating his own pancakes as well.

 

“Gaku? Tenn? What are you two doing here?”, Ryuu suddenly asked. They hadn’t paid him any mind anymore, so they hadn’t noticed that he and Yamato had finished their studying and got up to leave.

“We’re on a date, can’t you see that?”, Gaku said.

“Yeah, just like you two, just without the ‘study’ part.”

“Why… are you wearing hats and sunglasses though?”, Yamato asked, “were you trying to go undercover?”

“No, Tenn is just sensitive to the sun and can’t go outside without being shielded and because he is embarrassed I go along with his style of dress. That way he’s not alone.”

Ryuu looked confused at that lie and Tenn kicked Gaku’s shin under the table, but Yamato seemed to buy it.

”I see. Have a good date then”, he said and went to leave Café de la Lune.

“See you later Ryuu!”, Gaku said and turned around to Tenn again.

”Was that really necessary?”, that one said, “now Ryuu’s boyfriend thinks I’m allergic to sunlight or something. And you made yourself look like some kind of super kind, empathetic boyfriend, which you certainly aren’t.”

“Excuse me, I’m a saint.”

“You’re not. You made me wear a stupid hat and sunglasses inside a café I frequent.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t have put on the sunglasses, you’re right.”

Tenn sighed and gave up. Gaku was having too much fun with this conversation; he couldn’t win against this kind of Gaku.

 

Soon Mitsuki closed the café up and Nagi and Mitsuki came to their table.

“So, you two wanted to talk about something?”, Mitsuki asked. The orange haired man was still wearing an apron.

“Yes”, Gaku said, “it’s about Ryuu and Nikaido’s relationship.”

“ _Oh_!”, Nagi said, “ _Romance_ , isn’t it? Are you two trying to get them to _smooch_?”

“That’s an interesting way to phrase it, but yes.”

“ _Amazing_ , _Mitsuki_! We have to help them! Always remember: The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach! That’s how _Mitsuki_ made me fall for him!”

“Yeah, I’d like to see Yamato-san happy too”, the smallest of them said, “But what are you trying to do?”

“At the moment we’re collecting the stories of different people, so we can get inspiration and references for matchmaking”, Gaku explained.

“ _Oh_ , you want to hear about _Mitsuki’s_ and my _love story_!”

“Correct.”

“Nagi, where should we start?”

“Maybe when I became a _regular_ at your _café_?”

“That would be the starting point of everything, yes…”, Mitsuki was looking into the distance, “Okay, so, Nagi here became a regular at my café a while ago. He sat down every day after classes and sorted his notes. I noticed after a while and we began to talk from time to time. He really seemed to love my sweets and the other waitress. At first I thought he was here for her, so I invited him to work with us.”

“When I started working here I got closer to _Mitsuki_ and he fell for my charms!”

“I didn’t fall for your charms, you were invading my personal space at every opportunity you saw and it was getting annoying! But when I complained about it to Iori he said “you seem to like this man a lot” and that was when I realized that I actually really liked him.”

“We started hanging out in _private_ after that too~”, Nagi said and his eyes seemed to sparkle at the memory, “and every movie night we’d sit a little closer untiiiil~”

In the dramatic pause he made Nagi grabbed Mitsuki’s hand.

“…I _kissed Mitsuki_!”

“He kissed me and that was when we started dating officially, but when we thought about it later we had been dating for a while already. We just… eased into it.”

“Why do we only encounter such lovey-dovey couples?”, Tenn asked, but he was smiling.

“That’s a very beautiful story”, Gaku said, “Never mind my boyfriend. He wrote a letter of challenge to ask me out.”

“It was a love letter, you just misunderstood!”

“Yeah sure”, Gaku put his notebook away, “anyway, thank you, you two. We’ll keep you updated on our progress, if you want to. I heard that Tenn and Rokuya have quite the LINE friendship.”

“Yes, we have a group chat, actually”, Mitsuki said, “We call it ‘Big Brother’, members are Nagi, Kujou and me.”

“It has that name because they are _big brothers_ and are supervising their _younger brothers_ , like “ _big brother is watching you_ ” from _Nineteen Eighty-Four_!”, Nagi explained, “and I collect information for them!”

“Don’t tell him that”, Tenn mumbled.

Gaku laughed: “I see. Thank you for all this information then.”

“ _No problem_!”

“And if you’re looking for more inspiration you could always ask Riku and Iori”, Mitsuki said, “And I have two costumers who always come in here together too, they’re both students at the college here too… I think one of them is a zoology major and the other one is a botanist, though I’m not completely sure of that. Just ask for Momo-san and Yuki-san, they’re very famous around here.”

“We’ll keep that in mind”, Gaku said and pulled out his wallet, “the bill please, waiter-san.”

“Oh, Kujou already payed, he used a coupon for a free meal for two he won at last month’s karaoke event.”

Tenn looked flustered as Gaku turned around to face him. “Not only does this café have events like that, but you are actually attending those”, he said, “You must really love it here.”

“ _Please_ join us next time Kujou-shi’s boyfriend-shi~”, Nagi said and waved, “ _Bye bye_ ~”

“Goodbye Rokuya”, Gaku said and took Tenn’s hand, “Goodbye Izumi-ani.”

 

After they left the café the two of them headed to Ryuu’s apartment again. When they opened the door voices could be heard from the living room.

“Hey Ryuu, we’re back!”

“Welcome!”, two voices answered.

“Is Nikaido with you?”, Gaku asked while taking off his shoes.

“Yes”, Ryuu answered, “Iori-kun is staying over at his and Riku-kun’s dorm so he’s crashing here.”

Tenn stiffed next to him and Gaku grabbed his shoulder, to calm him down.

“Tenn, conceal your big brother rage. You’re going to scare people”, Gaku whispered, “And look at the potential we got with this situation: We can try that thing Rokuya suggested.”

Tenn calmed down a little, after hearing that: “‘The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach’?”

Gaku nodded and went to the living room. Ryuu and Yamato were sitting on the sofa. He noticed that the space between them was very small and that both of them could have backed off more, but apparently they liked each other’s physical proximity.

“We’re a little hungry, so we thought we’d cook. What do you guys want to eat?”

“Cook? You two?”, Ryuu suddenly seemed angry, “Have you forgotten why you are staying here? You burned your apartment to the ground. I’m not letting you do that here too.”

Gaku backed off, “Okay, okay. It was just a question. Why don’t you try cooking then? The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach”, he winked.

Ryuu blushed and stood up from the sofa: “I have no idea what you’re talking about! And I’m not in the mood to cook today, so we’re ordering take-out. Is Chinese okay? Yamato-kun?”

“Sensei is fine with anything”, Yamato said and smiled.

“Ew, take your roleplaying to the bedroom”, Tenn commented jokingly and Yamato grinned at him: “If you two leave we won’t need to take it to the bedroom.”

“He reminds me of you, Gaku”, Tenn said and went to sit down next to Yamato.

“What kind of movie are you watching?”, Gaku asked and stood in front of Tenn, so he could block the television, “I’ll let you sit in my lap, get up again.”

“Are we that lovey-dovey couple from this afternoon?”, he sighed, but still got up to let Gaku sit down. Then he sat in the space next to the armrest. Their legs entangled like that the two of them really looked lovey-dovey.

After a while Ryuu came back and sat down in the free space on the couch and they continued watching the movie until the take-out arrived. The Chinese food they ordered was delicious and they only stopped watching when Ryuu fell asleep on the sleeping Yamato’s shoulder.

“Look how cute they are”, Gaku whispered.

“We should just leave them like this”, Tenn said, “and get Ryuu’s camera, we need evidence.”

The two of them stood up and got Ryuu’s camera. The pictures they took turned out pretty good and they put the camera back to where it was. Then Tenn took another picture with his phone that he sent to that group chat.

“Let’s go to bed”, Gaku yawned afterwards and Tenn nodded. They were both exhausted after this day.

”Good night”, was the last thing Gaku heard before he fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading and have a nice day :D
> 
> \- Kai


	3. Meeting Up With Couples Because of Pancakes (Part 2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to chapter three of Because of Pancakes!
> 
> I'm on holiday in England right now and working hard to get chapter four done!
> 
> I hope you enjoy this chapter as well~

When Ryuu woke up in the morning – actually it was in the early afternoon – he saw his own face. Multiple times. Plastered all over the room. Next to Yamato’s face. Both of them were sleeping in the picture.

“Gaku! Tenn!”, Ryuu called. He just knew that this had to be their doing. He was about to fall off the couch in his anger, but an arm slung around his waist prevented him from falling.

Wait.

Ryuu turned around as far as it was possible for him and came face to face with a sleeping Nikaido Yamato. He wasn’t wearing his glasses and his hair was disheveled. The peaceful expression on his face made Ryuu’s heart flutter – he was so close, too close.

He flushed bright red and began to pry Yamato’s arm from his torso, so he could get up and get away from said sleeping male.

Ryuu ripped one of the photos off the table, where it had been stuck with tape.

“Those two, I swear to God”, Ryuu mumbled, “It must have been expensive to print this many copies of that picture… And all that effort to put them here…”

“They really went all out, huh”, Yamato’s sleepy voice could be heard from the couch.

“I’m sorry, did I wake you up?”, Ryuu asked. He could still feel the ghost of Yamato’s warmth next to him, “They’re trying to embarrass me. Let me apologize on their behalf, Yamato-kun.”

“Don’t sweat it. It looks like we slept past noon anyway, so it’s good I woke up. And about your friends… remember that I live with Riku? I’m used to this stuff.”

“Does Riku-kun really do things like this? Maybe those twins are more similar than I initially thought.”

“Well, not exactly, but he isn’t peaceful either. Once he put shaving cream on the door handles. And he swapped my shampoo with dish soap.”

“That really isn’t like redecorating an entire room while you’re sleeping in that very same room.”

“You win, your friends are worse than mine.”

“Thanks. I’m going to clean this up now”, Ryuu began to pry the photos from the wall.

“I’ll help”, Yamato stood up from the couch and took one of the pictures, “We really look good in this picture though. Can I keep one?”

Ryuu froze. What a strange request, why would Yamato want to keep a picture of them together? He nodded.

“Sure, if you like it.”

“Thanks.”

 

They began cleaning up after Tenn and Gaku, both of which were nowhere to find in the apartment.  


“How many pictures did you find? I have about forty I think.”

“Then we have about a hundred combined. They really put a lot of effort into this. I’m almost impressed.”

“I also found a note for you”, Yamato pointed to the table and Ryuu went to look at it.

 

“At least cook breakfast for him~”

 

Ryuu ripped the note to pieces.

 

“What did I do in my last life to deserve the best _and_ worst friends?”

 

 

 

“Do you think he cooked breakfast for him?”, Tenn asked. They were having lunch at Gaku’s Soba shop and he had just finished his serving.

“I don’t know”, Gaku said and collected the empty dish in front of Tenn, “But I hope he did, his scrambled eggs are to die for and he knows it.”

Tenn hummed in agreement. He was full and warm and comfortable. His eyes began to droop… Maybe Gaku would let him sleep in the staff-room.

“Hey, this is no time to sleep. We still have to complete our plan. I did some research while you put up the pictures.”

Gaku showed Tenn some of his brilliant sketches.

“Is this a bouquet of roses?”, Tenn asked, “Is that all you came up with?”

“It’s not _just_ a bouquet of roses. See the tiny clock next to the roses? They’ll be delivered to Nikaido’s door for a week or so and at the end of that time he has a whole bouquet. The last order comes with a letter confessing Ryuu’s love for him.”

“That’s a terrible idea.”

“Why?”

“Some roses are going to be a week older than the others. The bouquet would be mismatched. _And_ he lives with Riku. They’ll think that Izumi Iori sent them.”

“Is Izumi-otouto such a romantic?”

Tenn sighed. “What other ideas do you have?”

Gaku pulled another sketch out of his pocket.

”Why do you have to make these sketches all the time?”, Tenn asked with another sigh, “They don’t help illustrate your ideas at all.”

Gaku ignored his comment and began to explain: ”Okay look, this is Ryuu and he’s singing. This is Nikaido’s window. Ryuu will sing him a love song and confess his love through singing.”

“Can Ryuu even sing? I never heard him sing. And Nikaido Yamato lives on the second floor of a dormitory. Singing will disturb all the students living there”, Tenn rubbed his temples, “What kind of medieval European idea of romance do you have? Courting someone with flowers and what, courtly love songs? Is Nikaido Yamato some kind of damsel? Am I a damsel to you too?”

Gaku seemed to think about this a little.

”Of us three I’m probably the knight”, he said then, “You are my squire…”

“Oho, a forbidden love blooms”, Tenn commented dryly, “The knight is courting his squire.”

“…and Ryuu is the horse.”

Tenn snorted.

“Don’t laugh at me, I’m right.”

“You are, that’s why I’m laughing.”

“Glad you agree”, Gaku grinned, “Well, if you disapprove of my ideas then we have to scrap those, I guess. Meaning the next step is to find more couples, who can tell us about themselves.”

“Momo-san and Yuki-san”, Tenn said, “I thought about it and I know where they live. I had a class with Yuki-san once.”

“What do historians and botanists have in common?”

“More than you’d think, apparently”, Tenn said and pulled out his phone, “anyway, I have Momo-san’s e-mail address.”

“I thought you had a class with Yuki-san, why do you have Momo-san’s e-mail address then?”

“I have it because Yuki-san gave it to me, of course. Should I ask them out on a coffee date?”

“Soba date, my treat.”

Tenn sighed again and shook his head: “Sometimes I think your body must hate you for all the soba you’re consuming.”

“My body _loves_ me for all the soba I’m consuming. Look how hot I am.”

“Shut up, I’m writing that e-mail now.”

The shop grew quiet as Tenn typed out the mail on his phone.

“And sent”, he said after a minute of silence. He furrowed his brows, “I don’t think they’ll turn up though, who would turn up when someone you barely know sends you an e-mail offering you free soba if you tell them about your love life- Oh, he replied.”

“Already?!”, Gaku tried to get a glimpse at Tenn’s phone screen, but the other was already reading the mail out loud: “‘Of course, Tenn! We’ll be there in 5. See you~’ and then a bunch of emoji I don’t get. Not even Rokuya Nagi uses these.”

Tenn sat up straight all of the sudden: “What does he mean ‘be there in 5’, I didn’t even tell him the location. How does he know we’re here?”

The bell above the door rang as it was pushed open and Gaku opened his mouth for the automatic “Welcome!” that he had practiced so much, but-

“Momo-kun knows everything”, a silver haired man interrupted him as he entered the shop.

“Yuki, you’re flattering me”, another man, following the other closely said and laughed.

Gaku and Tenn stared at the newcomers in confusion, but they quickly found their composure again.

“Hello”, Tenn said, “When I wrote that mail I didn’t expect an answer until later this day and I didn’t expect to see you two until next week or so.”

“Momo was really excited when Nagi-kun and Mitsuki-kun told him that you two would reach out to us.”

“I haven’t slept for days, anticipating your e-mail!”, the smaller of the two said and sat down on the bench opposing the one Gaku and Tenn were sitting on.

“If I remember correctly you were sleeping like baby not too long ago~”, Yuki purred.

“That’s how it was! Yuki you’d be so hot while taking care of babies, maybe we should adopt!”

“Or Momo could get pregnant.”

“That’s a good idea too- wait, I can’t get pregnant! You’re so silly Yuki-san~”

 

“Are they always like this?”, Gaku whispered in Tenn’s ear.

”How should I know?”, Tenn whispered back, “I never met both of them together before. I’m at a loss too.”

 

Gaku cleared his throat and straightened his back. “Would you two like to order and while I prepare your food you can tell us about-“

”-our romantic get-together story, right?”, Momo interrupted him, smiling brightly.

“I’m not surprised that you know everything anymore”, Gaku said, “do you already know this shop’s menu too?”

When Momo shook his head Gaku got two menus and handed them to the pair. They looked excited when they looked through it. Well, free food was always something one could be happy about.

When the two had ordered and Gaku had disappeared behind the counter Tenn stared at them intensely.

“You seem so familiar with each other”, he said then, “Have you known each other for a long time? Are you childhood friends, perhaps?”

Momo smiled and Yuki shook his head: “No, Tenn-kun, you’re wrong for once. We have only known each other for a few years. I think it may have begun with…”

“…with the room assignment for the dorms. The only thing I had asked for was a roommate who was okay with cats, because I own a cat-“

“That he named after me”, Yuki interrupted.

“Darling, we’ve had this, she was called Yuki before I knew you. I wish I had named her after you though!”

Before they could fall into their comedy routine again, Tenn interrupted them: “So, you were assigned as roommates in your freshmen year in college?”

“Yes”, Yuki nodded, “Momo-kun and I got along very well, and soon we were close friends and everyone was calling us a married couple, because of the way we interacted with each other.”

“They still call us that, Darling”, Momo said.

“That’s because we are”, Yuki said, “well, we will be.”

“Right!”, Momo showed Tenn a ring he wore on his middle finger, “We got matching rings for our engagement!”

“You’re engaged? Congratulations”, Tenn said.

“That was when I tried asking Yuki out! I wrote a note and let Yuki deliver it.”

“You asked him to deliver the note to himself?”, Gaku asked from behind the counter, where he had been working silently.

“He meant the other Yuki”, Yuki said, “The cat called Yuki. She did a splendid job at delivering my beloved Momo’s note and I was very touched when I read it.”

“What did you write?”, Tenn asked. This love-note could be useful for their plans.

“I wrote ’marry me for real’”, Momo said, “Since everyone seemed to think that we already acted like a married couple, I thought this would be a good approach!”

Tenn sighed. No, this wouldn’t help them after all. Something this dramatic… A marriage proposal delivered by a cat was way over the top. He definitely had to stop Gaku to use that, because he’d love something like that.

“It was indeed a wonderful approach”, Yuki said, “I had just come home from band practice-“

“You’re in a band on top of your studies? That’s impressive”, Gaku interrupted him.

“Yes. I’m a triangle”, Yuki said and mimicked the movement needed to play a triangle with his hands.

“That’s less impressive”, Tenn thought to himself, but didn’t say it out aloud.

“Please continue your story, Yuki-san.”

Without missing a beat Yuki continued: “I had just come home from band practice and I came home to the apartment empty and dark. Yuki greeted me at the door and she had something stuck under her collar.”

“My note”, Momo interjected. Not that Tenn had needed the information that it had been the note that had been stuck under the cat’s collar.

Yuki nodded. “I took and read it and then I waited for my dear Momo to come home.”

“I went out to buy groceries and when I came back Yuki and Yuki were waiting for me. And Yuki said-“

“Which Yuki?”, Gaku interrupted.

“Gaku, please, just for once in your life think before you speak. Also stop interrupting our guests, it’s really rude.”

“It was the human Yuki”, Momo answered, “He said:” “I don’t know why your cat wants to marry me, but I’d much rather marry you.”

The present Yuki continued, “He said yes. And now we’re here.”

Tenn nodded slowly: “This story is as incredible as it is unmanageable to recreate. But we still thank you a lot for this.”

Gaku brought their dishes to the table: “Why wouldn’t we be able to recreate it? We just need a cat and a note.”

“Do you really think this extraordinary chemistry between those two exists anywhere else on this planet? Between Nikaido Yamato and Ryuu?”

“Maybe you’re right”, Gaku hummed thoughtful, “But the method is still an option. It’s a very good idea too, I think.”

“Your brain is made from soba, so that can’t really be called thinking”, Tenn said.

“I’m not so sure about what you just said, Tenn-kun”, Yuki said. Momo nodded: “The chemistry might exist between at least two other people on this planet as well. And they’re in this room right now.”

“Are you… are you calling Gaku and me an old married couple?”, Tenn snorted, “no, you’ve got something mixed up. I still don’t know how I’m even dating him.”

“Hey, I should be saying that”, Gaku said, “You confessed to me.”

Their guests shred a knowing smile that went over both Gaku and Tenn’s heads as they were currently glaring at each other.

“I don’t think we got anything mixed up”, Momo said, “So you’re trying to get Yamato and Ryuu to date?”

“You know them too?”, Gaku asked.

“Momo-chan knows everyone and everything~”, Momo winked, “These two are almost hopeless. I’m really happy someone is finally doing something for them to get together. Yuki and I are cheering for you!”

Yuki nodded and coughed: “But be aware, if your Ryuu hurts Yamato-kun, be sure that I will be there to avenge him. Don’t tell Yamato-kun I said that.”

“I love you when you’re protective Yuki!”, Momo swooned.

“I know”, Yuki answered.

Gaku watched in surprise, as Yuki reverted from the scary looking, threatening man back to his old, calm, and indifferent look. It reminded him of Tenn a little.

Tenn just smiled and nodded: “We don’t intend to hurt any of them. And let me ensure you, if one of them is more likely to hurt the other it’s Nikaido Yamato. Ryuu can’t hurt a fly.”

Yuki looked satisfied and Tenn stood up.

“We’ll be leaving you two to your meal then. Feel free to leave whenever you want to. Gaku will pay the bill.”

Before Gaku could protest that he and Tenn were going to split the bill between them, Tenn had dragged him behind the counter and into the separated staff room. There he aggressively began filling the dishwasher.

“Is everything… okay?”, Gaku asked carefully. He didn’t really understand why Tenn was acting like this all of the sudden, but he was sure that there was a reason to this.

The bell at the door rang, signaling their costumers leaving.

His boyfriend sighed deeply.

“I didn’t want to resort to this but it seems that we don’t have a choice”, he said and when Gaku looked at him questioningly, “This was a flop too, meaning we only have one couple left whom we can talk to about their love life and how they started dating.”

Gaku finally caught on to what Tenn was implying: “So we can finally go and see your brother and Izumi-otouto?”

A silent nod was the answer. Tenn was obviously not happy to go see his brother – or more like, he wasn’t happy to see his brother’s boyfriend.

“You’re such a brocon. And you’re extremely lucky that your brother is the same. And isn’t Izumi-otouto the same too? What an assembly of brocons”, Gaku said, “Should I stay home, so you can talk about your love for your brothers at the yearly council meeting of brocons?”

“Don’t you dare leave me alone with the two of them. I’m going to kill someone and then force you to hide the body with me.”

“You won’t kill Izumi-otouto. You wouldn’t be able to eat at Café de la Lune anymore”, Gaku said, “But you’re right, I would indeed hide a body with you. We could be like Bonnie and Clyde or something.”

The gears in Gaku’s head were turning and Tenn turned around from the dishwasher, alarmed: “Gaku, we’re not going to-“

“Let’s make Ryuu and Nikaido hide a body together. That’ll surely make them become closer.”

“We’re not going to do that”, Tenn said.

“Okay, I agree for once”, Gaku said, “Where would they even hide it.”

“That’s _not_ the main problem”, Tenn sat down in one of the chairs that were standing in the room, where the staff could sit down during breaks, “I hate you. Did you know that?”

“Yes, I know”, Gaku said, “And we’re going to see your brother. I’m closing the shop.”

Tenn didn’t answer anymore, but continued filling the dishwasher in silence.

 

When Gaku had closed the shop they made their way to the dorms of the college. The buildings were quite modern and Gaku could imagine living in one of the dorms, if he hadn’t had the apartment he shared with Tenn. That was currently out of use. Because of pancakes.

“Try to get along with Izumi-otouto. He’s always trying to get along with you too. Do it for Nanase”, Gaku said when Tenn raised his hand to knock at the door.

Tenn didn’t answer and knocked on the door to the room that he knew to be Riku’s and was greeted with a hugging whirlwind of red hair. Gaku, who stood behind him, snapped a photo with his phone. He had even left the shutter sound on, so Tenn would definitely notice it.

“Tenn-nii! And his boyfriend!”, Riku greeted the two of them, still hanging off Tenn’s neck, “You came to visit!”

“Actually we came here to discuss something”, Tenn said, “Would you let us in?”

“Iori is here at the moment, but he won’t mind, probably”, Riku said. The probably was left standing in the empty space between door and Gaku and Gaku was pretty sure that the ‘probably’ actually meant the opposite and that Izumi Iori minded a lot that the precious time with his boyfriend got stolen away by the boyfriend’s brother and the boyfriend’s brother’s boyfriend.  
There was a lot of brothers and boyfriends in this scenario, Gaku noticed. A fun mix.

“Nanase-san, would you like honey with your hot milk?”, a voice asked behind the two guests. Izumi Iori was standing there with two mugs in his hands. He had probably been at the dorm kitchen and had made drinks for the two of them.

“Yes!”, Riku said, “Look Iori, Tenn-nii came!”

“Great”, Iori said and moved past Gaku and the bundle that was the twins in their hug, “Will you let them in or…?”

“Right”, Riku said, “Please come in!”

The room was lived in, one could see that. Two beds, one neatly made, because the owner was absent at the moment, and two desks, a shabby couch and a TV with some kind of gaming system and a table in front of it. There were photos of Riku and Iori and Riku and Tenn and Riku and Yamato, and Riku and other people Gaku didn’t know on the wall above Riku’s bed and a lot of books on the bedside cabinet. It wasn’t big or beautiful, but Gaku liked it.

 “So, why are you here? Is there any purpose to your visit?”, Iori asked them and put the mugs down on the table. Riku had sat down on the couch and motioned for Tenn to sit next to him. Iori sat down on the other side of Riku, which sandwiched Riku between his boyfriend and his brother. Gaku decided that he’d rather stand than join the seating competition.

“We wanted to ask you how you got together”, Gaku said, before Tenn could open his big brother mouth and say something he would regret later, “We’re trying to get our best friend and Nikaido, who usually lives here, to date.”

“Because they’re idiots who don’t realize they like each other”, Tenn added.

“So if I tell you how we happened you’ll leave us alone?”, Iori asked, “Because I was enjoying my alone time with Nanase-san on my weekend off.”

“Iori is studying architecture at a university in the next city, that’s why we don’t see each other as often”, Riku explained, “It’s a little stressful but we make it work, right, Iori?”

The blue haired man smiled, “Indeed Nanase-san.”

“Well, then tell us, if you want us to go so badly”, Tenn said.

“Tenn”, Gaku scolded, “I’m sorry, he drank too much coffee this morning, that’s why he’s a little bitter.”

Tenn glared at Gaku but didn’t say anything.

“Good, it’s easy”, Iori said, “I told Nanase-san that I thought that he was cute, he began hyperventilating and I took him to the hospital, where he asked me out. That’s it. That’s the story.”

“You made him go to the hospital?!”, Tenn asked.

“Of course that’s the only thing you’d hear”, Gaku said, “Well, there is probably some more backstory to this, right, Nanase?”

Riku nodded: “We met at Mitsuki’s café as he was drawing there. You see, Iori likes drawing, but he decided against becoming an art student for a more stable future. He still draws for Mitsuki’s café though! Have you seen the pictures? They’re _amazing_ , as Nagi would say, right?”

“I see”, Gaku said, trying to keep up the conversation without letting Tenn or Iori interrupt them, because both wouldn’t result in good endings – one would throw them out and the other would start a fight with the other, because he was jealous because of his brother, “So you began talking then?”

“Yes! We exchanged numbers and texted sometimes and when he came to visit I’d go and see him. And then he said that he thought I was cute and it surprised me and I wanted to say so many things at once that my brain short-circuited and I just kind of… lost my cool. But Iori still likes me!”

“That he does”, Iori commented from the side. From the look in his eyes he knew exactly what Gaku was doing.

“That’s great for you then!”, Gaku said, “Thank you very much for your cooperation.”

“What are you going to do with this information now?”

“We’re going to try and create a getting together situation for Ryuu and Nikaido. Because of pancakes”, Gaku answered, “And then we’re going to watch the happy couple be grossly domestic. Just like what Tenn and I will be doing now. Because we’re leaving.”

Tenn had gotten the hint, but he didn’t seem to want to follow him.

“I’m not finished here”, he said, “I haven’t given Izumi Iori the talk.”

“They’re both old enough to know what they’re doing”, Gaku said, “Stop acting like your brother is so much younger than you. It’s only like ten minutes.”

“Twelve and a half”, Tenn corrected him, “And I’m sure that I still need to talk to him.”

“No you don’t”, Gaku said and grabbed Tenn’s arm, to lift him off the couch. Sometimes their height difference was really useful, “Izumi Iori, if you hurt Nanase Riku in any way then Tenn is going to come after you. And since I’m kind of connected to Tenn, I’m going to come after you too. So take care of him and treat him the way he deserves.”

“Nanase-san only deserves the best treatment. I’m aware of that.”

“See Tenn, there’s no reason to doubt him”, Gaku said, “Do I have to carry you outside, or do you want to walk on your own?”

“I’m not a child who doesn’t want to leave their friend’s place after they had fun playing”, Tenn said, but his pout suggested otherwise.

“Goodbye, Nanase, Izumi-otouto”, Gaku said and Riku waved after them, when Iori only nodded.

The door closed behind them, but Gaku pulled Tenn out of the building and across the street until he let go.

“Why did we have to leave so quickly?”, Tenn asked.

“Because if we had left only one second later you would’ve been at Izumi-otouto’s throat, like the jealous wildcat you are.”

“I’m not jealous”, Tenn said and crossed his arms in front of his chest, “Let’s go back to Ryuu’s apartment. I’m tired.”

When they had been walking for a few minutes and Tenn had calmed down a little Gaku spoke up.

"You getting jealous of your brother's boyfriend is a cute sight though."

Tenn's jealousy was a harsh and cold one and Gaku seriously felt bad for the poor soul who was the subject of this jealousy. That didn't change the idea he had gotten when thinking about jealousy.

"I don't know what you're talking about", Tenn said, "He's my little brother. Of course I'm a little protective of him. It's only natural. You wouldn't understand because you're an only child."

"You're probably right about that", Gaku said and changed the topic, "Well, as I was thinking about jealousy I thought we could use it for our next matchmaking attempt."

Tenn sighed. "And how would that work, exactly?", he was skeptical. Like he was of all ideas Gaku had had up until this moment.

"We have to make Ryuu jealous, so he comes in and takes what belongs to him."

"Can Ryuu even get jealous? He's good natured; he probably doesn't even know jealousy."

"Do we know that? We've never seen him in love until now either", Gaku said, "You see, the plan is, I flirt with Nikaido. Your job is to get Ryuu to see us. I'm attractive so that's not a problem and he's pretty cute too, glasses types are great, and if I flirt in the right way I'll have him wrapped around my finger soon. Maybe he'll let me do something, first or second base and-"

"Absolutely not", Tenn said, his voice cutting Gaku's plan in half with the same ice it had when he was talking to his brother's boyfriend, "Ryuu knows that we're dating, so the first emotion he would probably feel is anger, because his close friend is cheating on his other close friend. That's how Ryuu is. And I'm not allowing this. Because you're already mine."

Tenn grabbed Gaku's hand and avoided his gaze, to hide his blush probably.

"And", he added like it was an afterthought, "you never told me you liked glasses."

Gaku chose not to answer, but rather enjoy the situation.

The rest of their walk to Ryuu's apartment they didn't talk. It was a peaceful walk, the both of them next to each other, nobody else out in the streets...

What a productive day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> You want to know more about Gaku the knight and Ryuu the horse? Check out [Lavellan To Cake](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15200090)!
> 
> If you enjoyed consider leaving a comment :D
> 
> If you want to scream at me about anything you can do so on my [twitter](https://twitter.com/eins__kai) or [tumblr](https://einskai.tumblr.com/)~
> 
> Have a nice day!
> 
> \- Kai


	4. Matchmaking Because of Pancakes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the last chapter of Because of Pancakes!
> 
> I really went all out on this one. The fourth wall is dead.
> 
> Today is a special day, because it's my best friend's birthday!  
> Kuroh, I love you!  
> To celebrate her birthday I uploaded the chapter today.
> 
> Have fun reading!
> 
> \- Kai

Gaku had prepared a bunch of things in Ryuu’s living room and was standing in front of Ryuu and Tenn, like a teacher in front of his class.  
He noticed that Tenn wasn’t wearing his contacts today, but had swapped them out for his glasses. Another win for Gaku.

He had (finally) given up on strange drawings and instead presented a list to them.

  1. Love Letter
  2. Offering to listen to problems + confession
  3. Working together/invading personal space/ ~~cooking~~
  4. Marriage proposal delivered by a cat
  5. Telling him he looks cute
  6. A combination of 1-5 (Ultimate Plan™)



Without a comment Tenn stood up and took Gaku’s pen from his hand.

  1. Pushing together



Gaku nodded, Tenn nodded, the two of them turned to Ryuu, who was seemingly trying to vanish in the cushions of the couch, in synch. “Write a love letter Ryuu”, Gaku said.

“We can also help you write a love letter Ryuu”, Tenn said. The boyfriends closed up on their friend.

“I’ve never written one!”, Ryuu said, almost panicking a little, like when they had installed a very bright lamp and interrogated him.

“That was in chapter one”, Tenn said, looking towards no one in particular and Gaku stared at him, puzzled.

“Who are you talking to?”, he asked.

“The readers”, Tenn said and then turned to Ryuu again, as if nothing had happened, “So, do you need help writing one?”

“Wait, first let me ask you a question”, Ryuu said, “You said you talked to different couples for these ideas, right? Why are numbers three and four so strange then? What kind of people did you talk to? What kind of combination is number 3? And what even is number 4? How does that work? Relationships that start like that can only be really weird, right?”

“They were all really wonderful people”, Tenn said, “And their relationships seem to be healthy as well. Gaku, get your notebook. I’m going to ask Ryuu some questions and you’ll write everything down he says.”

Gaku did as he was told and with his notebook out and his pen ready to write anything down Ryuu would say next.

“Say Ryuu”, Tenn said and grinned. Ryuu expected the worst, “What do you actually like about Nikaido Yamato?”

The energy of the furious blush on Ryuu’s face could probably have powered an entire city for days, but he calmed himself down quickly and took a deep breath before answering. “Yamato-kun is a dear friend to me and falling in love with a friend isn’t bad, right? He’s a good listener and when we drink together he’s always fun to be around… but he’s also fun when we’re not drinking of course! Also he’s this genius type person; he’s so good at everything and barely needs to study, and on top of it he can explain everything very well too. He’s basically a natural born teacher, but he could be more too! That makes me question why he isn’t studying law or medicine in some prestigious university with ten scholarships backing him. And also his… uh”, Ryuu stopped for a while to recollect his thoughts, “We’re both the kind of person people would describe as the brotherly type and I think his Dad-Friend approach of that matches my Mom-Friend approach perfectly. Yes.”

“So you’re already planning to adopt?”, Gaku teased.

Ryuu didn’t answer and Tenn interrupted the awkward silence with a clap of his hands. “Okay Ryuu, thank you. Now that you said all these things, we’re going to write love letters with this. Gaku, give Ryuu and me pens and paper so we can write too.”

 

Half an hour later Tenn was massaging his temples in annoyance, while Gaku finished reading his love letter.

“…when I see you smile my heart soars and begins to dance. Please dance this dance with me and accompany me on a date.”

“Gaku… really, what are you thinking?”, he asked, while supporting Ryuu, who was close to fainting with one hand, “What kind of romance novels do you usually read? And don’t you dare tell me you aren’t reading them; this kind of flowery language doesn’t come from anywhere! Is it Shoujo Manga? You’re reading Shoujo Manga, right? Do you hide them in our apartment or read them at work?”

“I’m not reading Shoujo manga”, Gaku said, offended, “This is all my own personal imagination!”

“I think we had this already, but this is not medieval Europe. Declined. Ryuu, please remind me to never let Gaku have a say to any other romantic text again.”

Ryuu next to him took a relieved breath and nodded slowly. Tenn would be glad too if he would be released of the pain of having to confess his love with a letter like the one Gaku had just given to them.

“Hey!”, Gaku said, “This was a beautiful letter and anyone could be happy to receive it.”

“Yeah, yeah”, Tenn patted Gaku’s head encouragingly, “We’ll hang it on the fridge when we can move in again.”

“You damn brat”, Gaku grumbled, “I’m not the child in this relationship.”

“I think you are”, Tenn said and moved on without sparing Gaku a second thought, “Mine is very simple, but I think it may be _too_ simple for your tastes.”

He had spent about thirty seconds writing “I like you Nikaido Yamato, please go out with me” on the piece of paper Gaku had given him.

“Why didn’t you write that when you confessed to me? It would have made one day of my life easier.”

“I have grown since that day. Not a lot, because my taste is still bad, after all I’m still with you, but I have a better understanding of humans and what written words they will understand.”

“What you said is so mean, but I just can’t be mad at you for some reason.”

Tenn ignored him: “Let’s just look at Ryuu’s version.”

Ryuu only gave them his letter shyly, but as soon as Tenn had skimmed over it he nodded in approval.

“Very heartfelt, full of the right emotions. I like it. Almost makes me fall in love with you, Ryuu”, he patted Ryuu on the back, “Well done! Now we only need to deliver it to Nikaido Yamato and see what happens.”

“I’d like to deliver it personally”, Ryuu said.

“Good idea!”, Gaku threw in. He probably felt a little dejected, because Tenn hadn’t allowed his letter to be used. But with a letter like that… honestly, “Personal delivery adds a more realistic feeling. And he can reject you immediately if he doesn’t like you after all.”

Ryuu deflated next to Tenn and a sharp look in Gaku’s direction immediately made him row back: “Not that he will reject you!”

“Okay…”, Ryuu said, “I’ll text him and tell him to meet me on campus tomorrow after classes end. I can give him the letter then.”

Tenn nodded and with that the first confession was planned.

 

 

Gaku came home to Tenn and Ryuu sitting on the couch in Ryuu’s living room, Tenn feeding an unwilling Ryuu ice cream with a spoon.

“Did he…?”, he started asking, but Tenn shook his head, a grave expression on his face.

“I don’t need the ice cream Tenn, I’m not a high school girl who got rejected!”

“The love of your life didn’t show up to your confession. This is ice cream worthy.”

“He _didn’t show up_?!”, Gaku flopped down on the couch, occupying Ryuu’s other side, “That’s unforgivable. No way. Hashtag Revenge For Ryuu.”

“He just got sick”, Ryuu said, “It’s not that bad.”

“Tenn feed me some ice cream too, I’m feeling sad in Ryuu’s place”, Gaku said, “He just doesn’t have the comprehension to understand the graveness of his own situation. How pure-hearted.”

Without a comment Tenn fed Gaku some of the ice cream, accidentally smearing it over his face.

“Whoops”, he deadpanned, “Sorry, now you have ice cream on your face. I guess we have to go to the bathroom and get you cleaned up.”

He grabbed Gaku’s wrist and pulled him to the bathroom, even though Gaku complained that he could clean himself up and even though it was Tenn’s fault that he was full of ice cream he didn’t want Tenn to act like a mother hen. He sat Gaku down on the toilet seat and stood in front of him.

“Ryuu isn’t telling us the whole truth”, he said, “There’s something about his story that’s off. But we can just proceed with our plan. I will find out what’s wrong.”

“I didn’t notice at all”, Gaku said, but then nodded, “If anyone can find it out it’s you.”

“Good”, Tenn looked smug at the compliment, “I say we proceed with part two of the plan.”

“But this time we observe their conversation. I still have costumes we didn’t use yet.”

“Observation yes, costumes no.”

Gaku sighed, “I don’t get what’s wrong with my costumes.”

“Everything is wrong about your costumes.”

Gaku pouted, but didn’t say anything anymore.

“So, phase two of the plan. Offering to listen to his problems and a confession.”

“How do we do it?”

“The next time they meet up for studying we listen to their conversation and give Ryuu instructions. I own an in ear microphone we can use for monitoring. We can place other microphones in the living room and listen to them from receiving speakers nearby.”

“You’re so well prepared for a situation like this.”

“I’m always well prepared for everything.”

“That you are”, Gaku said and ruffled his hair, “Let’s go meet with Ryuu again and tell him about the plan.”

 

A few days later Gaku and Tenn had set up a microphone in Ryuu’s living room, close to the table where Ryuu and Yamato would be studying later.

Gaku really felt like he was a spy or something like that when they tested the installation, him sitting in his and Tenn’s temporary bedroom on the bed and Tenn lowly talking in different positions in the living room, to check if they really could hear everything that was being said.  
They could, which surprised Gaku. What exactly did Tenn own these microphones for? But it wasn’t the time to question his boyfriend’s intentions and if he maybe actually was a spy of a secret organization. He’d surely tell him soon enough, the latest point being when Gaku would be kidnapped, because he was Tenn’s weak point… Nah, there was no way that would happen, right?

The study session came quickly after that, and Gaku and Tenn sat on their bed in front of the low table in the bedroom, where they kept the speakers and the microphone, that Tenn would be in control of. He had made sure that he was in control, so Gaku couldn’t feed Ryuu lines for flirting, but Gaku was fine with letting Tenn take the lead, even though he would love to use the opportunity of getting to take the lead again to put Tenn in some kind of costume.

“Shush”, Tenn mumbled and interrupted Gaku’s thoughts, “It’s starting.”

Gaku listened to the sounds coming from the speakers now.

The apartment door fell shut and voices came closer to the living room microphone.

“So we can finally study here again?”, Yamato’s voice said.

“Yes. Tenn and Gaku aren’t here today”, that was Ryuu. The sounds of chairs scraping over the floor, incredibly close to the microphone. They were sitting down over there, Gaku concluded, or at least one of them was, “I’ll make you a tea, or would you like something else?”

“Tea sounds good”, Yamato answered, “By the way, sorry that I couldn’t come that time you wanted to talk to me after classes. What was that about~?”

Tenn next to Gaku shifted. He seemed to be suspecting something, again. Gaku didn’t really understand, but Tenn had said that he’d figure it out.

A click of the microphone in the room activating when Tenn pressed the button. “Don’t tell him directly right now. Say you’ll talk about it later.”

Ryuu reacted almost immediately: “Ah, it was nothing important. Let’s talk about it later, yes?”

“Sure, sure. Studying first, am I right?”, Yamato laughed, and the next sounds were drowned out by the electric kettle cooking water, way louder than Gaku had suspected it, especially because it was supposed to be in the kitchen, where they definitely didn’t have a microphone.

Tenn had his brows furrowed too, confused.

“I’m sure he’s hiding something…”, Tenn mumbled, a string of words leaving his mouth as he thought out aloud, “but I can’t just walk in, if I’m wrong I might ruin Ryuu’s chances if I reveal that he lied about us not being home, so we just have to move on with our plan…”

Gaku patted Tenn’s arm to get him to focus again.

The noise of the kettle was gone again, and now they heard paper shuffling and Yamato summing up what the last lecture’s main points were. Even though Gaku had always thought that pedagogics weren’t really a difficult subject, he didn’t understand a word. Well, this was an advanced course already, but still, he had expected more of “don’t hurt your children it will mess them up” and less terminological lingo he couldn’t comprehend.

It was pretty boring listening to them talk, especially because Gaku didn’t understand a thing, so after a short while already he felt his eyes fall closed and his head loll. Luckily for him Tenn noticed, and had taken precautions. Well, if one could call slipping ice cubes into Gaku’s shirt and then muffling his surprised noises with his hand ‘precautions’.

“No falling asleep and no noise”, Tenn whispered, his hand still on Gaku’s mouth and holding him in place firmly, while Gaku squirmed. That little piece of shit! His shirt felt wet and disgusting, the ice cubes having molten halfway and still being stuck somewhere on his back.

Now Gaku was more awake than before, especially when he heard the blessed words from Ryuu’s mouth:

“Do you want to take a break?”, Ryuu asked and Yamato made a show out of yawning loudly, way too loud for it to be real.

“Sure”, Yamato said, “Is it time to talk about whatever you wanted to talk about then?”

Tenn quickly activated the microphone. “Yes”, he whispered into it, Ryuu repeating his words, “And now you have to use our plan, confess and tell him you’ll listen to his problems.”

Ryuu coughed slightly as a signal that he had understood and began.

“Yamato-kun, you know that I really admire you. And you always help me so much with classes and other things too. So… if I can help you in any way, please tell me about it, yes? I really like you, so I’ll listen to your problems.”

“Sensei knows you like him”, Yamato laughed, “Who else would help you with classes? And my biggest problem at the moment is probably that I can’t afford a roomba for our apartment.”

Ryuu awkwardly laughed, doing his best to cover the failed attempt at a confession up, and then they just went on with their break, eating something that sounded suspiciously like the cookies Gaku had bought when he went grocery shopping last weekend, and drinking their tea.

Tenn was nervously twisting a pen in his hand. Chewing on his lips his eyes darted over to the plan that they had placed on the backside of the closed door.

“Ryuu”, Tenn commanded then, the button pressed again, “Move on to part three of the plan! Invade his personal space. You’re technically already working together, so just invade his personal space.”

Gaku shivered as he heard the tone of voice Tenn (the shivering didn’t have anything to do with the ice cubes, though those were also still very there and very cold) had chosen for the command. He almost wanted to go into the living room and cuddle up to Nikaido himself, but that wouldn’t earn him any praise from Tenn either... though jealous Tenn was cute. He was still wearing his glasses too. Hah. What a boyfriend he had gotten himself here.

Loud noises from the microphone in the living room interrupted Gaku’s thoughts.

It sounded like someone was ripping paper into pieces right in front of the microphone. What kind of thing could ever cause a sound like that?

When the sounds were gone, the two seemed to have gone back to working again.

“Oh? What’s this?”, Yamato suddenly said over the sound of pens scratching on paper. His voice was unnaturally high, but layered with genuine surprise, “Is that a hand on my thigh? Is sensei being sexually harassed?”

“Is he… feeling Nikaido up?”, Gaku whispered, a little shocked.

“That’s not what I meant with invading personal space!”, Tenn hissed, “What is he thinking?!”

“S-Sorry!”, Ryuu apologized frantically, “I-I didn’t mean to..!”

“A naughty student gets extra homework~”, Yamato said, still in that strange voice, and Gaku and Tenn in the other room looked at each other, horrified.

“This is like that one time you wanted to try watching porn together”, Tenn whispered.

“I didn’t know it was _that_ kind of-“, Gaku interrupted himself, “Are we going to ignore that our best friend is talking in bad porn dialogues with his crush two rooms away from us?!”

“No, we’re not”, Tenn said, and activated the microphone again, “Ryuu, this isn’t working. Don’t let Nikaido Yamato touch you in any way you don’t like, you hear that?”

“You sound like a mom”, Gaku mumbled. Tenn glared at him, but couldn’t say anything because the microphone was still activated.

“Just take it easy for now, okay? I’ll be back with more instructions.”

With that the microphone was off again and Tenn turned to Gaku.

“There really is something up with them”, he said, voice deep and full of concern, “But before we can find out what we need to move on with the plan. Think we can fit number five into this day too?”

Gaku looked over to the plan and thought about it for a few seconds.

“Will he start talking in porn dialogue again if Ryuu tells him that he’s cute?”

“If he does I’m breaking down this door to punch him in the face”, Tenn answered.

Gaku didn’t question this statement, even though he would’ve liked to say that Tenn could just open the door normally. They already had to pay for the repairs in their apartment; they didn’t need additional costs because Tenn broke down a door in order to protect Ryuu’s innocence.

“Then let’s wait until they’re almost finished. We crammed a lot into the first part already, means that it would get obvious if Ryuu flirts too much.”

“Sometimes you’re smarter than you seem.”

“Hey, I’m smart!”

“Not smart enough to not try and extinguish a burning pan with water.”

“We had this already! I was just missing that piece of knowledge!”

Tenn sighed. “Yaotome ‘I work in a restaurant’ Gaku, missing a piece of essential knowledge that could easily cost him his life…”, he said, “Maybe I should be grateful that it happened while I was there. Maybe your life has been saved because of pancakes burning our apartment down.”

“I wish it hadn’t, then I wouldn’t have to listen to your nagging”, Gaku mumbled.

“Don’t say that”, Tenn said and hit Gaku’s arm lightly, with just enough strength for it to hurt a little, “I’m glad pancakes saved your life in the future.”

Gaku let out a breath, and turned his attention away from the conversation, that had turned too dark for his tastes.

“What are they doing now?”, he tried to listen, but there wasn’t a lot of sound.

“I think Nikaido Yamato said something like ‘Onii-san-sensei is going to take a nap while student-Ryuu finishes his work’ and since then there hasn’t been any talking”, Tenn said, because of course Tenn could multitask and banter with Gaku while also listening to conversations a room away.

“He upgraded the nickname for himself, amazing.”

“He did, but isn’t this the perfect opportunity?”

“For what? For taking pictures of them again?”

“Gaku.”

“Sorry, sorry. You should tell Ryuu to wake Nikaido after he finishes and tell him that he looks cute. Sleeping or in general.”

Tenn nodded and activated the microphone: “Ryuu, as soon as you finish your assignment you wake him and tell him he looks cute when he sleeps. But only after you really finish, you hear me?”

A mutter of approval from the living room told Gaku and Tenn that Ryuu had understood.

When the microphone was off again Gaku rolled around so that he was laying on his back now. Arms crossed behind his head he stared up to the ceiling. “Do you really think that ‘cute’ is the right word to describe Nikaido?”

“What word would you describe him with then?”

“I don’t know, but it’s not ‘cute’, that’s for sure.”

“Yeah? What is cute to you then?”

Gaku thought for a while, various things he would describe as cute came to his mind quickly. There were a lot of things that could be cute. The quiet noises of Ryuu studying in the living room from the speaker were the only thing he could hear.

Suddenly Gaku gasped, as if he had gotten an idea: “Tenn, I know how we can work with number four now!”

“I’m not dressing up as a cat”, Tenn shot him down immediately.

“How did you know I was thinking about that?”

The only answer was a deadpan look into his direction.

Gaku hummed dejectedly: “Guess I’ll have to think about something different then… You’d really look cute as a cat though.”

“Oh, Ryuu finished”, Tenn said, ignoring Gaku again, “Pay attention again.”

“Hey, Yamato-kun”, Ryuu seemed to shake Yamato’s shoulder, not too close to the microphone, “Good morning!”

“Morning”, Yamato slurred. He sounded sleepier than one should be after a half hour nap.

“You really look adorable when you sleep like this”, Ryuu said, and Gaku felt his heart throb. The way Ryuu had said the words, so heartfelt and genuine, made him feel like he was watching a life performance of a romance flick. Ryuu’s character really fit that too. Maybe Gaku should suggest a story like Yamato and Ryuu’s to his favourite authors. Maybe one of them would appreciate it.

“Why, thank you”, Yamato said, falling into that strange voice again, “You aren’t that bad yourself.”

“Now!”, Tenn said into the microphone, “Ask him out now!”

But the long awaited moment never came.

Instead they heard a crash, loud enough to be heard from both the speakers and from behind their closed door.

Gaku and Tenn both flinched, but they didn’t move from their position. They couldn’t reveal themselves after all. To know what happened they had to wait for the two men in the living room to talk.

“Ryuu, are you okay?”

“Yeah, it’s… nothing. Just a scratch. And some plates and cups lost I guess…”

“This is bleeding a lot though; let me get a first aid kit.”

Some shuffling and then a gasp: “This looks like a deep cut. You might need stitches... I’ll drive you to the hospital.”

“If you say so…”, Ryuu said, and with that their voices were gone from the living room, had moved to the hallway, where they seemed to be putting on shoes, to drive to the hospital.

When the door fell shut, Gaku got up and walked to the living room without another word to Tenn.

It was a mess, really.

Apparently the tray with the plates and cups had fallen off the table. Every single dish was in shambles, and Gaku immediately got the dustpan and brush from the kitchen, to clean it up, when Tenn stopped him.

“Wait”, Tenn said, “There’s something off about this. Don’t destroy evidence.”

Gaku froze in his movements, and instead watched Tenn investigate the scene.

“The electric kettle is over here…”, Tenn mumbled as he retrieved the electric kettle from a corner of the room, where it definitely did not belong. Then he went to pick up some of the shards.

“Careful, I don’t want you to have to go to the hospital too”, Gaku said.

“I’m not dumb enough to actually hurt myself with shards”, Tenn said and looked at the shards closely, “These aren’t Ryuu’s usual dishes.”

“They’re not?”, Gaku asked. That was confusing.

“They’re older than Ryuu’s, and I mean these are _really_ old. This cup has been fixed before and this one plate has a stamp from… Fifty years ago.”

“Is the history finally coming in handy?”, Gaku teased, but was immediately shot down by Tenn.

“That would be archeology. And finding a stamp on a plate that has been mass produced like these isn’t really a difficult task”, he said and looked over the shards again, “Gaku, can you see any shard with blood on it?”

There was no shard with blood on it.

“Maybe they took the shard with them to the hospital?”

“Why would they?”

“I don’t know. It was stuck or something?”

“Then they would have said that…”

Tenn picked up a few shreds of paper from the dinner table.

“I think I know what’s going on”, Tenn proclaimed after a while of looking at the shreds.

“Really? What?”

“I don’t want to tell you.”

“Why not?”

“Because of pancakes.”

“That’s not a reason!”

“From now on it is.”

“It’s not. I bet you have no idea what’s going on either but just want to seem cool.”

“You’re allowed to clean up now.”

“What if I don’t want to? Because of pancakes?”

“Do you want me to get the ice cubes?”

Grumbling to himself that Tenn was such a mean person and a bad boyfriend, keeping him in the dark about something that could be important for their plan and also threatening him, Gaku began to clean up the living room. The shards on the floor and the scraps of paper, that seemed as if some were missing… did Tenn take them to prevent him from finding out about the truth too?  
Luckily for him the tea cups had been empty, so there were no nasty stains he had to remove from floorboard or carpet.

While Gaku had been cleaning Tenn had removed the microphone and other things he had placed in the living room and taken them back to the bedroom, where he was probably keeping them, neatly stored inside a case labelled “TENN’S PROPERTY – DO NOT TOUCH UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES”.

Tenn had more of those boxes back at their apartment, and Gaku was wondering what kinds of other things Tenn had in store. Maybe he _was_ a secret agent or a spy after all. Or maybe the boxes just held endless amounts of pictures of Riku. That could be too.

Gaku returned to the bedroom and sat down on the mattress, but when he noticed the plan hanging on the wall he got up and crossed some things out.

  1. ~~Love Letter~~
  2. ~~Offering to listen to problems + confession~~
  3. ~~Working together/invading personal space/cooking~~
  4. Marriage proposal delivered by a cat
  5. ~~Telling him he looks cute~~
  6. A combination of 1-5 (Ultimate Plan™)
  7. Pushing together



 

“Why are you staring at the plan like this?”, Tenn asked when he came back to the room from wherever he had gone to return the supplies to.

“I’m just thinking about number four”, Gaku answered, “Are you sure –“

“Yes, I’m sure that I don’t want to dress up as a cat, thank you very much”, Tenn said.

“That’s too bad…”, Gaku mumbled, “I would’ve loved to see that.”

“Of course you would. I’m not dressing up as a cat in front of other people.”

“Does that mean you’d do it in private?”

“Gaku…”, Tenn’s expression became threatening again, but Gaku decided to take it a little further.

“So you wouldn’t want to do it if it’s just the two of us either?”

“You just want me to greet you in a cat costume when you come home from work and say:”, Tenn cleared his throat and leant forward slightly, resting his hands on Gaku’s knees. He looked up at Gaku with adorable but also incredibly disturbing doe-eyes. Gaku hadn’t been aware that Tenn could make this expression, “Oh, Gakkyun~ I’m so happy to see you again~ What wouwd you wike fiwst? Dinnyew? A bath? O-ow… Mew?”

Gaku swallowed hard at that, but before he could answer his boyfriend pulled back, wearing his usual expression again.

“Nya”, Tenn added in a deadpan voice.

Gaku felt like he had been splashed with cold water.

“Uh”, he said, clever as always.

“So the answer is _no_ ”, Tenn said, “I’m not dressing up as a cat _ever_ , not in front of you or in front of anyone.”

Finally Gaku had recovered again. “Maybe I should just dress up as the cat then”, he said, “I would make a good cat.”

He balled his hands to imitate paws.

“Nya!”

Seeing Tenn blush furiously at seeing him like this made Gaku feel some kind of triumph. Maybe he had been reduced to a stuttering mess when Tenn had done it, but Tenn himself hadn’t been better when Gaku had done it! They were both equal disasters for each other.

Tenn mumbled something that Gaku didn’t quite catch.

“Sorry, what did you say?”, he asked, a teasing smile on his face.

“I said go die!”, Tenn climbed onto the bed and threw a pillow at Gaku.

Gaku caught it in the air and threw it back.

“You can’t kill me”, Gaku proclaimed, louder than it was necessary, “I’m too strong for you!”

“We’ll see about that!”

 

When Ryuu came home later he was greeted by a silent apartment.

“Gaku?”, he called, carefully, because he never knew what to expect of those two, “Tenn?”

No answer was an answer too, so Ryuu carefully walked towards their room and knocked on the door.

Finally he got a sign of life, in form of a weak mumble from inside.

He opened the door.

The room was a mess.

Feathers seemed to be scattered over every surface in the room and Gaku and Tenn themselves were lying on the bed, where no pillows or a blanket could be found anymore.

His two friends were sprawled out on top of each other, a tangle of limbs. Ryuu couldn’t really see where Tenn began and Gaku ended, and he also couldn’t see who was actually lying on top. He hoped it was Tenn, because having Gaku on top of oneself if one was Tenn and like half a Gaku the experience couldn’t be pleasant.

“Hi Ryuu”, Gaku mumbled.

“Hi Gaku”, Ryuu answered slowly, “What… happened here?”

“We had a pillow fight because we couldn’t decide who should play the cat”, Gaku said, “It ended in a draw.”

Ryuu didn’t really know which cat Gaku meant, but that sounded like a very trivial matter. Typical.

“Liar”, Tenn said, sounding just as worn out as Gaku, “We started the pillow fight because I said that you should go die when you tried to imitate a cat. Also I clearly won. I’m on top of you.”

Gaku hummed, as if he was just remembering that too. “I bet Tenn would be cuter than me though.”

“Would you just stop already?”, Tenn replied, “Nobody is dressing up as a cat.”

“If you’re arguing about that you could just both dress up as a cat?”, Ryuu offered.

Gaku’s head perked up as if he had gotten an idea, and Tenn groaned: “God, now you fed him new thought material, just when I had beaten every single dumb thought out of him…”

“Tenn, we can both be the cat! I’ll be the head and the front legs and you can be the rear legs!”

“No”, Tenn said, “No way. I’m not delivering Ryuu’s marriage proposal dressed up as a cat-butt.”

Ryuu almost choked on air. “Delivering my _what_?”

“Your marriage proposal. Number four. Marriage proposal delivered by a cat”, Gaku explained, “But we don’t actually have a cat, so we’re trying to find a way to do it without an actual cat.”

“My… marriage proposal. To Yamato-kun.”

Tenn nodded. Gaku nodded. Ryuu shook his head.

“I don’t want to marry him though?”

“What do you mean you don’t want to marry him?”

“I do like him, but that doesn’t mean I want a lifetime commitment?!”, Ryuu rubbed his temples, “Please don’t propose to Yamato-kun on my behalf.”

“We’ll make it another confession letter then”, Tenn decided, “Gaku, you come up with a method to deliver it.”

“I’ve been on that this whole time”, Gaku complained.

“One that doesn’t involve anyone dressing up as a cat or us having to buy a cat.”

“Oh…”

Silence. Ryuu cleared his throat.

“Well, while you two think about that I’ll prepare dinner”, he said and turned to leave.

“Wait a second Ryuu”, Tenn stopped him. He untangled himself from Gaku and got up, “I’ll help you. I wanted to ask you some questions about that hospital visit today. We want to make sure Nikaido Yamato is treating you right after all.”

Audibly swallowing Ryuu nodded and with that Tenn and Ryuu left Gaku alone.

 

When Tenn came back to the room later to get Gaku for dinner he found Gaku looking up something on the internet.

“Did you find a way?” he asked, startling Gaku.

“I think I did”, Gaku said, “Remember what Nikaido said his biggest problem was?”

“Not being able to afford a roomba for his apartment?”

“Correct!”, Gaku turned his phone around to show Tenn the website he was looking at, “But because roombas are expensive as hell I found this.”

“Rental roombas”, Tenn mumbled slowly, “That’s… so strange. Why would anyone offer this?”

“I don’t know, but we can rent a roomba for a day. It’s not that expensive and we can use it for the confession.”

“That’s actually quite a good idea”, Tenn said, “I’m surprised. Well done Gaku.”

“What does that mean, you’re surprised?! My ideas are always great.”

“May I remind you of the ‘let’s dress Tenn as a delinquent and make him intimidate Ryuu and Nikaido Yamato’-plan?”, Tenn crossed his arms, “That was everything _but_ a great idea.”

“It was a perfect idea! It just didn’t work in the ways I expected it to.”

“That makes it imperfect.”

“It was very entertaining to me, which makes it perfect again.”

“Shut up, that’s not a valid reason. Dinner is ready by the way.”

Gaku got up from the bed at that and came towards the door. When he walked past Tenn he ruffled his hair.

“I really liked that Tenn too.”

If Ryuu noticed Tenn’s blush during dinner he didn’t comment on it.

 

“Today I’m going to go to get the roomba we rented”, Tenn announced the next day at the breakfast table, “We rented it for a few days instead of one, because there was a discount if you rent it for longer. We actually only want to use it on one day, so getting the discount wasn’t that smart, but like a not-so-wise Yaotome Gaku once said ‘a discount is a discount’. At least that means that we can try both number four and number six with the roomba, should number four fail.”

“It won’t fail of course”, Gaku assured their friend, “You’ll get your boyfriend Ryuu, don’t worry.”

“Gaku is right for once”, Tenn said, “I’ll bring the cat substitute. Ryuu, you write another love letter, and Gaku, your mission is to leave Ryuu alone for writing at all costs.”

Gaku pursed his lips but nodded.

“Can’t I just use the same love letter I used last time?”, Ryuu asked. He didn’t really want to go through the trouble to write another one.

“We don’t reuse things that concern matters of the heart in this house”, Gaku scolded.

“Okay then… I’ll try to do it”, Ryuu said, “I might be home late today though.”

Tenn got up from the table. “Alright, I’ll be on my way then.”

“See you later~”, Gaku called, “And I’ll get ready for work now.”

“Have fun you two.”

“Thanks Ryuu.”

The door fell shut behind Tenn and with that the apartment grew silent.

Ryuu buried his face in his hands. How was he going to get out of this mess?

 

Later that day, almost at night, a dark shadow lurked in front of the room that had been Tamaki and Sougo’s a while ago and was hosting two other men at the moment. It was silent behind the door.

Ryuu had come home late, as he had said in the morning. He was holding his camera in his hands, a strap around his neck.

He was determined to finally, _finally_ , get some good photos of his friends.

Gaku and Tenn were hard to convince to let him take pictures of them, especially pictures that showed them doing anything even slightly couple-like. Tenn’s insane ability to sense danger, or a camera, near them wasn’t helping his case.

That was why he had loved Tamaki and Sougo as his roommates – those two were always happy to be the models for his photography. Especially Sougo really liked collecting pictures of them together, even more so after they got together.

Carefully he opened the door to the room.

What he saw would’ve made him drop his camera if not for the strap around his neck.

Gaku and Tenn were sitting on the floor in front of the king sized bed. Gaku was facing the door and Tenn was sitting right in front of him. Ryuu could only see his back. Their hands were interlinked, but this… wasn’t even remotely romantic.

There was an empty paper bag with the logo of Gaku’s soba shop next to him and there was a circle of burning candles that surrounded a box of soba-to-go.

“Bless this shop, oh you soba spirits”, Gaku began to sing-song all of the sudden, “take this soba as an offering.”

Ryuu could do nothing but stare at his friends performing… a ritual?? To summon???? A soba spirit???????? His confusion was so great that he even forgot how to use punctuation correctly. In his mind.

Ryuu didn’t know how much time passed, but the disturbing scene ended with Tenn shifting. He took a look at the box and declared: “It’s still here.”

Gaku opened his eyes: “Oh no, it didn’t work. I guess I’ll have to eat the soba now, so it doesn’t go to waste.”

“You don’t need to find excuses like summoning soba spirits to eat soba, you know. I’ll still love you even if you look like soba yourself”, Tenn sighed, “Just… don’t eat too much. And eat something else from time to time.”

Gaku grabbed the box and began eating with chopsticks he got from who knows where. Then he looked up. “Oh hey Ryuu”, he said, unbothered by Ryuu’s obviously horrified expression and the implication that Ryuu had watched what had just happened. When Tenn noticed what was implied by Ryuu standing behind him he tensed up, but Gaku, without a care in the world held the box up, “Want some soba too?”

“N-No thanks”, Ryuu stammered and backed out of the room, just as Tenn was blowing out the candles, to somehow regain his dignity.

What even, Ryuu thought, what was wrong with those two?

 

The next day Ryuu had invited Yamato over again, and the two were currently getting ready to go out again, to do whatever those two did when they went out to do something that wasn’t studying.

Gaku and Tenn were standing behind the doorframe; Gaku was holding the roomba he had affectionately named Robert, even though Tenn told him not to get too attached to the small robot.

It really was too cute though! All those adorable booping noises and how eager it was to clean the floor! Gaku really understood Yamato’s love for roombas, even though he thought that Ryuu’s future boyfriend should focus at least the same amount of love on Ryuu.  
If he didn’t Gaku and Tenn would come after him. After all they were the ones that composed the relationship, yea, and ones/to whom the relationship was but as a form in wax/by them imprinted and within their power/to leave the figure or disfigure it.

“Gaku, stop quoting Shakespeare in your thoughts, especially this particular scene from Midsummer Night’s Dream. It’s incredibly misogynistic, also Ryuu isn’t our daughter _and_ he’s able to take care of his own relationships. Just because we helped a little we don’t have any right to interfere later.”

“You’re right”, Gaku laughed awkwardly, “Theseus and Egeus really are strange characters, aren’t they?”

“Zeitgeist”, Tenn mumbled.

“We’re leaving!”, Ryuu called, and Tenn jabbed Gaku in the side.

“Release the roomba!”

Gaku put the cleaning robot onto the floor at their feet and immediately it began cleaning, doing its job – just that it wasn’t doing it like it was _supposed_ to do it.

They had planned to let the roomba approach Yamato, so that he would take the love letter than had attached to the back of the roomba, read it and walk into the sunset with Ryuu.

The roomba had other plans though.

It turned around and bumped into a wall, only to continue its way back towards them.

“Robert!”, Gaku called, “What are you doing?! You were supposed to bring balance to this story, not destroy it!”

“Gaku stop quoting stuff, or I’ll get seriously angry!”

“I’m sorry Tenn, it’s just that it’s been almost 7000 words already and we haven’t made any progress!”

“Obviously we don’t have! You don’t really believe that we can finish this without trying everything on our list?! This isn’t real life, where everything works out logically!”

“Right, I forget that all the time…”, Gaku said, and leant against the wall. Defeated he slid down until he sat on the floor. “Tenn… I think this is the end for me… You have to go on without me… But my conviction is still with you. We’re Nakama to the death Tenn. You can do it! I love you…!”

“Gaku…!”, Tenn gasped and knelt down next to his boyfriend, “Gaku, no, you can’t…! Don’t do this to me! Without you… How will I ever find out what mystery surrounds Ryuu and Nikaido Yamato’s relationship (even though I figured it out already, I’m just not telling you) and how will we ever eat delicious pancakes in our repaired kitchen again…! Gaku, don’t leave me! No! NO!!!”

“Excuse me”, a voice from behind said, “What exactly are you two doing?”

 “I’m lamenting my beloved boyfriend’s frustration coma!”, Tenn said, completely serious, “Quick, is there any soba around? We have to wake him up!”

“Oookay”, Nikaido Yamato, who had been standing behind them, said slowly, “Hey, is that a roomba over there?”

“No!”, Tenn said, “It’s not a roomba! And now go leave with Ryuu, like you wanted to before Gaku started quoting Obi Wan Kenobi! Leave me alone in my grief of just having lost my beloved… I am a widower now.”

“I’m pretty sure he’s alive, but go off I guess”, Yamato said and pressed F, to pay respect to the deceased Gaku.

Then he took Ryuu’s wrist, and pulled him out of the apartment door, because he had been standing there, lost, 1,90m of confusion and second-hand embarrassment.

“My knight in shining armour”, was the last thing Tenn heard Ryuu say, before the door closed behind the two.

“Okay Gaku, you can stop now”, Tenn said and smacked Gaku’s head, “We reached 7000 words and can proceed with the last step of the plan – the big mashup™. Our Ultimate Plan™.”

Gaku’s lips opened slightly. Raspy his voice sounded in the otherwise silent room.

“Soba…”

“No soba if you don’t get up now”, Tenn said, “We need to prepare the Ultimate Plan™. They’ll be back in a few hours.”

“I’m surprised you can actually say the trademark symbol out loud”, Gaku mumbled, still weak but slowly regaining his senses, “How do you do that?”

“It’s easy”, Tenn answered, “I just say ‘™’.”

“Trademark”, Gaku tried.

“™”, Tenn said.

“Trademark.”

“™.”

“Trademark!”

“™!”

“I give up, I can’t do this”, Gaku said.

“You’ll get there”, Tenn patted his shoulder encouragingly, “You just have to practice some more.”

Gaku sighed deeply.

“You sound like an old man, stop sighing”, Tenn said, “And now get up already.”

“Maybe I will, if you give me my revival kiss.”

Tenn leaned down and pressed a sweet kiss to Gaku’s lips. “There. Are you happy now?”

“Almost as good as soba”, he got up from the floor and stretched.

“Excuse me? My kisses are definitely better than soba.”

“No way, nothing is better than soba.”

“Sometimes I question if ‘soba’ isn’t just a euphemism for an affair you’re having.”

“I would never cheat on you”, Gaku said, suddenly serious.

“I know Gaku. I trust you. I said that without thinking. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay”, Gaku walked towards their bedroom, “Let’s see what we can do with our plan…”

 

  1. ~~Love Letter~~
  2. ~~Offering to listen to problems + confession~~
  3. ~~Working together/invading personal space/cooking~~
  4. ~~Marriage proposal delivered by a cat~~
  5. ~~Telling him he looks cute~~
  6. A combination of 1-5 (Ultimate Plan™)
  7. Pushing together



 

“Somehow this doesn’t really look like things we can combine”, Tenn said, his arms crossed as he stood in front of their plan.

“You’re right”, Gaku said, “It also doesn’t sound like something that would work. Ever.”

“Hey, you’re supposed to be the romantic who believes in our plans here”, Tenn said, “But we can always skip the bees and move on to number seven.”

“Which bees –“, Gaku face-palmed when he realised, “I love you Tenn, but that was kind of out of character.”

“The whole dying scene just now was out of character. I don’t care anymore.”

“Fair”, he walked towards the plan and got his pen, “So, how are we doing this?”

“We still have the roomba, so let’s take the cat part from number five, make it a roomba part and be done with that.”

“Sounds good… And a love letter saying how cute he is and offering to listen at the same time?”

“Perfect. And if it works this time the roomba will also invade Nikaido Yamato’s personal space. That way we have everything in there.”

“Phew, that was easier than expected.”

“Almost as if someone had already thought of this idea about three months ago and is only just now writing this down.”

“Really strange, but also kind of cool.”

“Kind of”, Tenn said, “Good, you’re in charge of training the roomba to get to Nikaido Yamato. I’ll write the love letter.”

“Alright! I’ll use one of the pictures we took of Ryuu and Nikaido to train him to go towards him. That will work!”

“Yeah, it won’t work because that’s not how roombas work, but really, nobody cares about that at this point. We all just want Nikaido and Ryuu to smooch and then go home”, Tenn said, ominously, as if he was hiding something. Gaku didn’t notice anything, of course.

“I’m off then!”

“Good luck.”

“You too.”

 

Later in the evening Yamato and Ryuu came back from their adventure, or whatever they had done together.

Gaku and Tenn were waiting for them in the entrance of the apartment, this time not even bothering to hide.

“Welcome back”, Gaku greeted.

“We have someone who wants to tell you guys something here”, Tenn said and pointed towards Gaku, who was holding Robert the roomba, now equipped with a new love letter.

He put the roomba to the floor and this time it actually went towards the two men who had just gotten home.

“A roomba!”, Yamato said happily, “And it has a letter addressed to me!”

He took the letter and began reading it.

After he finished the letter he pressed it to his heart. It looked like he had tears in his eyes.

Yamato knelt down next to the roomba and petted the robot.

“Thank you little roomba”, he said, and the cleaning robot beeped happily. Amazing, what kind of influence Yamato had on the roomba. He seemed to get along well.

“I’m glad the roomba offers to listen to me”, Yamato said, “Look Ryuu! He even called me cute, and I don’t know him at all!”

“That’s great”, Ryuu said with a pained face.

“Tenn”, Gaku whispered, “Did you forget to sign the letter with Ryuu’s name?”

“Oh shit”, Tenn whispered back.

“Please tell me that this isn’t true. Please tell me it’s a lie that Nikaido Yamato is standing in front of us and believes a roomba wrote him a love letter.”

“I could tell you that it was a lie but that would be a lie too.”

“I hate this story, why can’t we succeed?”

“I don’t know Gaku…”, Tenn said, and sadly patted Gaku’s arm, even though he had given him the explanation a while ago already.

Ryuu stared at the two despairing friends of his with and affectionate smile and shook his head. Those two really… They really cared so much about this plan succeeding that he doubted that they were still remembering the goal they actually wanted to reach.

Yamato looked at Ryuu questioningly, and in silence the two communicated.

“Just a little more time”, Ryuu seemed to say and then straightened his shoulders, to actually talk aloud, “Goodbye Yamato-kun. I had a nice day today, so let’s do this again sometime. Thank you for dropping me off.”

Whatever Yamato and Ryuu had communicated – Tenn had a slight suspicion (who was he kidding, he knew what was going on) but he couldn’t be sure (come on, the readers must have gotten it at this point too, Tenn thought, looking directly into the reader’s eyes, Or wait, he forgot, that he hid some of the evidence… maybe they hadn’t figured it out after all) and couldn’t talk about it at the moment – Yamato had gotten it and nodded. “See you~”, he said, and with that he was gone, the door falling shut.

“Sorry about that you two”, Ryuu said, “I guess he’s too dense after all…”

“That was the last plan!”, Gaku lamented, “Everything has failed now! There’s nothing left we can do…!”

“You’re mistaken”, Tenn said, a diabolical smile creeping onto his face, “I’ve been wanting to do this since the very beginning… Finally my time to shine has come.”

“What…?”

“We’ll push them together after all.”

“Tenn, you’re our saviour! We should build a shrine for you.”

“Stop the flattery Gaku”, Tenn said, “Well Ryuu… It’s getting late quickly, so I will try to catch some sleep now.”

He left the two standing in the hallway to return to his and Gaku’s bedroom.

“Right”, Gaku remembered, “I got an e-mail that our apartment was going to be finished tomorrow, so we were thinking about holding a small party soon, on the weekend maybe.”

“That’s great”, Ryuu said. Internally he was cheering. He would be free of the nuisances he called his friends soon!

“Well, I think I’ll join him then. We’ll have to plan a party after all. Good night Ryuu, sweet dreams of your Nikaido~”

“Th-thank you”, Ryuu said, “You too I guess? Dream of… Soba?”

“Awesome”, Gaku disappeared into the room too.

Again Ryuu shook his head. How often would he have to think about his friends with this strange affectionate shaking of his head and a smile?

 

Of course the last time hadn’t been enough to make Ryuu back down. He was still dead set on getting at least one picture of Gaku and Tenn.

Today, after their newest failure and with trying to catch up on sleep before they could move to their apartment again it was the perfect opportunity.

He had set an alarm for himself, so he could go check on his friends when he was certain that they had gone to sleep already.

Just as carefully as he had done the first time Ryuu opened the door.

Luckily there were no candles in sight this time. The lights were still on, but the men on the bed seemed to be asleep.

Tenn was sprawled out on top of Gaku, his head resting on his boyfriend’s chest.  
Contrary to Gaku being shirtless to sleep Tenn wore an oversized, dark t-shirt that looked suspiciously like the t-shirt Ryuu had seen Gaku wear in the evening. His lower back was covered by the blanket.

A book was lying next to Tenn’s hand, probably forgotten over small affectionate gestures of a half-asleep Gaku. The latter’s hand was tangled in Tenn’s hair, the fingers relaxed, but looking as if they had been stroking the light strands not long ago, combing his boyfriend’s soft hair, massaging his scalp.

Ryuu had to supress a sound that threatened to escape his throat because of the adorable scene in front of him.

Quickly he had found the perfect angle to take a photo of them – he really was lucky they had left the light on. If one looked closely one could even see Tenn’s free hand, the one that hadn’t been holding his book, squeezing Gaku’s shoulder lightly, as if looking for support during his sleep.

He knew the perfect location for this picture. The frame had stayed empty for the longest time now, between pictures of other friends and his brothers. Gaku and Tenn were a difficult subject to take photos of, but this one photo really was superb. He’d treasure it forever, or at least until another opportunity arose to take an even better picture.

Ryuu smiled with another look at his friends and shut the door, not after putting the lights out.

“Good night you two”, he whispered against the wood of the closed door.

 

The party was wonderful.

The apartment really looked just like it had before the fire, apart from the giant banner that said “Welcome back – Because of Pancakes” and the long table Gaku and Tenn had borrowed from a neighbour. It was the buffet.

(“Why is the buffet only pancakes?”, Mitsuki had asked when he, Nagi, Iori and Riku had come in earlier.

“Because before we had to move out we wanted to enjoy some delicious pancakes in our apartment. Now we can finally do that”, Gaku had answered with a pained expression, “Tenn didn’t even allow me to bring a single serving of Soba...”

No other words had been exchanged between Mitsuki and Gaku since then, but he seemed to enjoy the pancakes, at least right now he was being fed some by Nagi.)

Tenn was waiting for Yamato to arrive, so he could finally push him into Ryuu.

They had decided that that would be his task today, while Gaku took care of all other guests. That was mainly because Iori and Riku would be there too, and Gaku had wanted to prevent Tenn from going into big-brother mode and challenging Iori to a rap battle to the death over his brother’s honour or something like that.

That meant that Tenn had to wait for the perfect opportunity to push Nikaido Yamato into Tsunashi Ryuunosuke, preferably without knocking half their furniture over or starting another fire.

Finally something green came into Tenn’s field of view, but it turned out to be Yuki, who had just arrived with Momo in tow.  
He was holding something in an obnoxious green colour in his hands, and Gaku, who was standing by the door and greeted him, immediately asked what it was.

“That’s my new instrument. I gave up on the triangle, now I play the otamatone”, Yuki answered, “It is very fulfilling. Would you like to hear a song?”

“He’s very good at it!”, Momo chirped from behind him.

When Yuki actually began to play his what-was-it-called-again Tenn thought that Momo had probably gone deaf thanks to the sounds this monstrosity made.  
There was a rhythm actually, and different sounds too, but Tenn couldn’t imagine that only one single otamatone could ever sound good on its own – there needed to be at least a few others, to complete the harmony.

“Yuki-san”, Tenn said loudly, to make his voice heard over the “music”, “Could you please stop playing your otamatone? You’re scaring the pancakes.”

“ _No_! Not the _pancakes_!”, Nagi called and immediately began talking to Yuki, so that he would stop scaring the food.

“Can pancakes get scared Sou-chan? Maybe I should scare the food more often; it could change how it looks…”

“Food can’t get scared, Tamaki-kun, at least if it’s already dead it can’t.”

“Uwah, why do you always have to say stuff that’s so scary Sou-chan?”

Tenn turned his attention away from the guests and towards Ryuu, who was sitting on the sofa and seemed to be waiting for something. He was munching on a pancake.

Tenn smiled. Today was the day. Finally. Finally he would see his theory confirmed. The theory that Ryuu had been –

Before he could think his thought to the end he spotted Yamato in the corner of his eye.

Now some cool spy-mission music from an old cartoon should start playing, Tenn thought as he got into position.

The green haired man didn’t seem to suspect anything, as he just walked towards Ryuu, without a care in the world. Probably to greet him.

Tenn stalked up behind him, his steps as silent as those of a wild cat.

When Yamato leant forward, probably to hug Ryuu, Tenn took the chance and _pushed_.

As planned Ryuu caught the falling man in his arms, but of course the sly fox of an onii-san managed to turn around mid-fall (HOW?!?!) and was now sitting in Ryuu’s lap. Tenn wanted to strangle him. Actually, he was _about_ to strangle him when Gaku interrupted with a call from the other side of the room.

“Just _get together_ already! What else are we supposed to try? That was our last plan!”

Everyone grew quiet at that. One could have heard a soba noodle drop. That was how quiet it was.

“Yeah, about that -”, Ryuu began, but was interrupted by the man in his lap.

“- Actually we’re already together”, Yamato said and grinned.

“What?!”, Gaku cried out. “I knew it!”, Tenn said at the same time.

“What do you mean you _knew it_?!”, Gaku turned to Tenn, his face a mess of confusion.

“Well”, Tenn smiled. He knew he was better than Gaku this time, because Gaku hadn’t picked any of the obvious hints up. Well, he hadn’t shown him all of them, of course, that may have been the reason that Tenn was smarter in this situation. But still, this time Gaku was the dumb one.  
Actually, now that he thought about it, Gaku was always the stupid one out of the two of them.

“The two of them started dating before we started numbers two, three and five. While they were away from our sight they used the electric kettle and ripping paper to cover up noises they didn’t want us to hear! You see, Yamato… Ryuu… I see through your lies.”

“HOLD IT!”, Yamato called, his finger pointing into Tenn’s direction vaguely, “How can you be so sure that this is true?! You have no actual evidence, just assumptions! You haven’t actually seen any of that happen, did you?!”

“Yamato-kun, what are you doing? Just now you said we were dating yourself…”, Ryuu looked a little lost, his boyfriend, still pointing at Tenn with that ridiculous pose, and looking very fired up, sitting in his lap.

“Sore wa chigau yo!”, Tenn called, now taking a very similar pose to Yamato’s, “I _do_ have evidence! On said paper I found secret messages the two exchanged while they were “studying”! Also the dishes you broke that presumably cut Ryuu weren’t his at all. That means, you just broke old dishes you didn’t need anymore, to have an excuse to take him away from that situation!”

Tenn breathed in. “I must commend both of your acting though. You had me convinced that Ryuu actually got hurt, until I found that no shard had any blood on it. A very good counterplan to ours.”

“Oh no! He got us!”, Yamato proclaimed then, “The despair is going to consume me!”

“You better stop letting despair consume you, or we won’t congratulate on your relationship with Ryuu”, Gaku said.

“That’s right”, Tenn smiled, “Congratulations, both of you.”

“Yamato-san! You finally asked him out?”, Riku called from his spot by the wall, where he and Iori had been sitting, and eating pancakes.

“Actually he asked me out with a heartfelt love letter. It really made this old man swoon~”

“You’re not old, stop saying that”, Mitsuki smacked Yamato on the arm lightly, before hugging his friend, “Well done, Tsunashi-san. Make this guy happy, will you?”

“I’ll do my best”, Ryuu answered and smiled.

“ _Oh_! _Congratulations_ , Tsunashi-shi, Yamato! _Love_ always wins in the end, just like in _Magical Kokona_!”

Nobody really understood what the blond was talking about, except maybe Mitsuki, but everyone nodded along and laughed.

“Ryuu-kun, you have my blessing”, Yuki said, “Please send me private pictures of Yamato-kun, so I can blackmail him.”

“Th-There’s no way I would-“

“He’s joking”, Yamato intervened, “I don’t _need_ your “blessing” or whatever, but thanks I guess.”

Momo gave the two of them a thumbs-up (actually, knowing Momo he had probably known about their relationship before Tenn or even Yamato and Ryuu themselves did) and Iori, who really didn’t know any of the two very well nodded respectfully.

“Ryuu-aniki, now we can go on double dates with Yama-san and Sou-chan!”, Tamaki grinned and wrapped his arms around both Yamato and Ryuu in a surprise-hug, “Actually, if you and Yama-san are together now, does that mean I should call Yama-san “Yama-aniki” too…?”

“Please don’t do that”, Sougo said from the back, “And you shouldn’t squeeze those two so much, if you want them to live to tomorrow.”

Towards Ryuu and Yamato Sougo expressed his happiness about their relationship, and then took Tamaki by the arm, to take him somewhere else.

“So you got together after number one after all?”, Gaku asked, his arms crossed, “Does that mean I didn’t have to get jealous over Tenn feeding Ryuu ice cream?”

“He did that?”, Yamato laughed, “And yes. I accepted his love confession, but you two were having so much fun with your strange plans that we thought we’d let you do it a little longer.”

Gaku and Tenn looked at each other for a moment, silently communicating.

“Well, I guess if you two are happy now we can forgive you”, Tenn said then.

“How generous of you”, Yamato grinned.

“Why, thank you”, Tenn said, and grinned as well. He wouldn’t lose against someone like Nikaido Yamato in a battle of sarcasm, “Gaku, how about you ask everyone for their preferred soba and get us some now?”

“Oh so _now_ you decide it’s time for soba?!”

“Yes, I’m allowing you to eat soba now, having only pancakes as a buffet is a little cruel after all.”

Gaku grumbled a little, but turned around to take everyone’s orders, and when he had done that he left the apartment to go to his shop, to prepare the dishes.

“So, what’s next?”, Yamato asked, when the door had closed behind Gaku, “Will there be a sequel where we have to help you propose to Gaku?”

Tenn furrowed his brows. “There won’t be a sequel. We’re way too young to marry.”

“Also”, he breathed in and smiled, “Everything turned out well already, didn’t it? This is a nice ending. Because of pancakes.”

 

Silence. Was this the end?

 

“Stop saying the title all the time!”, Gaku said suddenly. He had come back way more quickly than Tenn had anticipated. He hadn’t wanted him to show up again anymore until the story ended. Apparently these feelings had shown on his face, because Gaku explained himself.

“Someone on the street where the soba shop is tried to microwave something wrapped in aluminium foil, so I couldn’t get through to the shop. Everything is full of fire trucks.”

“Are you serious? We’re ending this with another housefire?”

“For a moment I thought we’d really have to get a sequel called “Because of Soba”, because the soba shop burned down, but luckily it wasn’t so.”

“As I said, there won’t be any sequels”, Tenn sighed, “Can we just have a time skip until the guests leave, have a cute conversation in our own apartment and fall asleep, ending this story? Or no, better, we just end it like this.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hours later Gaku and Tenn were cuddling on their couch in their living room, finally free from having to work around Ryuu. Not that they had minded, but it was a little more relaxing, being able to do what they wanted to do without taking a third person into consideration.

“I’m glad we decided against the time skip after all”, Gaku mumbled over Tenn’s shoulder, “That would have made for a cheesy ending. This way it’s funnier.”

“I don’t know, it felt a little rushed”, Tenn said, “As if it was incomplete.”

“Well, I’m glad we have privacy again. It was getting tiring, being watched in everything we do.”

“It’s natural for us”, Tenn said, “Isn’t it?”

“Not in this world.”

“Hm, you’re right.”

“Ryuu finally got a boyfriend. Can you believe that? Our baby bird is leaving the nest.”

“ _Baby bird Ryuu_ , oh my god”, Tenn chuckled, “I can’t believe you referred to our best friend as a baby bird.”

“He is one though, have you seen him?”

“You’re right and I hate that I have to admit that.”

“I’m always right”, Gaku grinned.

“Not when you try to extinguish burning pans with water.”

“Way to rub salt into the wound.”

“In this situation I should rub syrup into the wound.”

“Why syrup?”

“Because of pancakes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> Leave a comment if you liked it :D
> 
> If you want to scream at me about anything you can do so on my [twitter](https://twitter.com/eins__kai) or [tumblr](https://einskai.tumblr.com/)~
> 
> Have a nice day!
> 
> \- Kai

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Wish upon a starfish](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16814884) by [ShionsTear](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShionsTear/pseuds/ShionsTear)




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